Beatriz Hampshire Barros

Beatriz Barros is a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Virginia Tech. Her research focuses on local and urban politics, electoral accountability, and public service provision in the developing world, with a particular emphasis on Brazil.

Dr. Barros’s current book project examines the political conditions that prompt local governments to invest in public works and why those investments produce uneven outcomes. The project draws on a novel dataset of more than 50,000 grants for health-related infrastructure projects in Brazil spanning three municipal electoral cycles. More broadly, her research investigates how elections, political turnover, and local institutional conditions shape the implementation and completion of public investments. Her methodological interests include quantitative approaches to studying political processes that unfold over time.

Dr. Barros has presented her research at the annual meetings of the American Political Science Association, the Latin American Studies Association, the Southern Political Science Association, and the Political Economy of Latin America Consortium.

She earned a PhD in Politics and Social Policy from Princeton University and a bachelor’s degree in Government and Sociology from Cornell University. In 2022, she completed a Fulbright fellowship in Brazil.