Higher education:

Post-doctoral fellow, State University of Campinas, Department of Anthropology (UNICAMP) (2008)

Post-doctoral fellow, Columbia University/Comitas Institute for Anthropological Study (2005-2007)

Ph.D., M.Phil., Columbia University - Anthropology (2005)

M.A., University of São Paulo, Brazil - Language and Education Program (2000)

Bachelor's Degree, Polytechnic School, University of São Paulo, Brazil (1995)

Teaching:

2006-2007: Yale University. Lecturer in Anthropology (visiting appointment), Department of Anthropology and Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies.

2007 (Spring): Teachers College, Columbia University. Adjunct Professor. Anthropology Programs, International and Transcultural Studies Department.

2001-2002: City University of New York - Borough of Manhattan Community College. Adjunct Professor, Social Sciences Department.

2001-2002: Columbia University. Teaching Assistant, Anthropology Programs. New York, NY.

1997-2000: Universidade Bandeirantes de São Paulo. Adjunct Professor, Department of Education. São Paulo, Brazil.

Courses taught:

The Anthropology of Uncertainty (graduate seminar), Spring 2007 - Department of Anthropology, Yale University.

Climate and Society (undergraduate course), Spring 2007 - Department of Anthropology, Yale University.

Imaginaries of Development in Latin America (graduate seminar), Fall 2006 - Department of Anthropology, Yale University.

Peoples and Cultures of Latin America (undergraduate course), Fall 2006 - Department of Anthropology, Yale University.

Introduction to Anthropology (undergraduate course), Fall 2001, Spring 2002 - Social Sciences Department, Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York;

Introduction to Human Geography (undergraduate course), Fall 2001, Spring 2002 - Social Sciences Department, Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York;

Introduction to Sociology (undergraduate course), Fall 2002 - Social Sciences Department, Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York;

The Sociology of the Family (undergraduate course), Fall 2002 - Social Sciences Department, Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York;

Social and Cultural Basis of Education (teaching assistantship, graduate course, instructor: Professor Lambros Comitas), Fall 2001 - Applied Anthropology, Teachers College, Columbia University;

Methods of Inquiry: Ethnography and Participant Observation. (teaching assistantship, graduate course, instructor: Professor Charles Harrington), Summer 2002 - Applied Anthropology, Teachers College, Columbia University;

Other educational activities:

Coordinator of the Summer Field School in Fieldwork and Ethnographic Methods in Brazil. (Funded by the Landes Grant for Supervised Fieldwork, through the Research Institute for the Study of Man, and the Comitas Institute for Anthropological Study.)

2004 Edition, co-organized with Kenneth Broad (University of Miami). Students: Georgia Melville - Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico; Andrea Domanico - Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil; Adailton Barbosa Gomes Ferreira - Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil.

2006 Edition, co-organized with Ana Laura Gamboggi (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico). Students: Érika Mesquita - Universidade de Campinas, Brazil; Rita Pestana Almeida Pinto - St. Andrews University, Scotland; Carolina Neri - Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, Mexico; Chandra Morrison - University of Cambridge, UK; Vítor Manuel Klironomos Popinsky - Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal; Carlos Abraão Moura Valpassos - Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

2006 Engineers Without Borders - New York Regional Workshop, Columbia University. Ethnographic and participatory methods: Understanding culture and fostering a relationship with a community, successful interviewing, and community workshop techniques. With Nicole Peterson (Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, Columbia University) and Scott Lacy (Emory University). Saturday, September 30th, 2006.

Research positions:

2002-2005: Columbia University Earth Institute / International Research Institute for Climate and Society. Researcher.

2000-2001: Research Institute for the Study of Man. Researcher. Interactive Science Group/Disparities in Law and Power Project. Director: Lambros Comitas. Project undertaken: "Ganja in Jamaica" web site. New York, NY.

Publications:

2001b - Moral Panic - The Ethnography of Hooliganism. Institute of Latin American Studies Newsletter, ILAS-Columbia University, Fall 2001.

2002a - Pandora's Hole - Image and Imagination (original title in Portuguese: O Orifício de Pandora - A Imagem e a Imaginação). In Miranda, Hercilia Tavares de and Luís Carlos de Menezes (orgs.). Almanaque de criação pedagógica: a aventura da explicação - ciência e linguagens. Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes. (Portuguese).

2002b - Notes on the Political Economy of Categories and Labels in Argentinean Soccer (original title in Spanish: Notas sobre la economía política de categorías y denominaciones en el fútbol argentino). Educación Física y Deportes, Year 8, No. 55, December 2002 (Spanish).

2004a - The Uses and Social Life of Water Laws - Notes and Reflections Concerning the Case of Ceará (original title in Portuguese: Os usos da lei e a vida social da legislação hídrica - Notas e reflexões sobre o caso do Ceará). Revista Teoria e Pesquisa, No. 44/45, jan./jul. 2004 (Portuguese).

2004b - Notes on the Social Life of Climate Forecasts - a Study of the Case of Ceará (original title in Portuguese: Notas sobre a vida social da previsão climática - Um estudo do caso do Ceará). In Lall, Upmanu and F. A. Souza Filho (eds.), Gerenciamento Integrado dos Recursos Hídricos com Incorporação da Previsão Climática: da Informação e Previsão Climática à Redução das Vulnerabilidades às Secas no Semi-Árido Cearense, Vol. 3. Palisades, NY and Fortaleza, Brazil: IRI/FUNCEME (Portuguese).

2006 - Rain Oracles in Modern Times: Media, Economic Development and the Transformations in the Social Identity of the Brazilian Backlands' Rain Prophets (original title in Portuguese: Oráculos da Chuva em Tempos Modernos: Mídia, Desenvolvimento Econômico, e as Transformações na Identidade Social dos Profetas do Sertão). In Martins, Karla (org.), Profetas da Chuva. Fortaleza: Tempo d´Imagem.

2006b - Climate and society: changing paradigms, Op-ed article, Diário do Nordeste, Fortaleza, January 17, 2006.

2007 - Kenneth Broad, Alex Pfaff, Renzo Taddei, Sankarasubramanian Arumugam, Upmanu Lall and Franciso de Assis de Souza Filho. Climate, stream flow prediction and water management in northeast Brazil: societal trends and forecast value. Climatic Change, Volume 84, Number 2, September 2007.

2008 - Oráculos de lluvia en tiempos modernos. Medios, desarrollo económico y transformaciones de identidad social de los profetas del Sertão. Historia y Desastres Vol. III, La Red/CIESAS, Mexico.

Forthcoming - Renzo Taddei and Ana Laura Gamboggi. Gender and the Semiotics of Political Visibility in the Brazilian Northeast. Accepted for publication by Social Semiotics.

Forthcoming - The Social Life of Climate Information. In Taddei, Renzo, Upmanu Lall and Francisco de Assis de Souza Filho (eds.), Climate, Water and Society. Palisades, NY, and Fortaleza, Brazil: IRI/FUNCEME.

Forthcoming - Integrating Climate and Water Management in Ceará: Historical Background, Social and Legal Structures, and Implications. With Kenneth Broad and Alex Pfaff. In Taddei, Renzo, Upmanu Lall and Francisco de Assis de Souza Filho (eds.), Climate, Water and Society. Palisades, NY, and Fortaleza, Brazil: IRI/FUNCEME.

Submitted Article - The Politics of Uncertainty and the Fate of Forecasters. Submitted to Current Anthropology.

Submitted Article - Forecasting Meanings: an anthropological analysis of
the communication between climate scientists and rural communities in Northeast Brazil. Submitted to Human Organization.

Submitted Article - Ana Laura Gamboggi and Renzo Taddei. Weaving Memories in Semiotic Battle: displacement, symbolic violence, and discursive resistance in the Jaguaribe Valley, Brazil. Submitted to Ecologic and Environmental Anthropology.

Submitted Article - Kenneth Broad, Nicole Peterson, Ben Orlove, Alex Pfaff, Carla Roncoli, Renzo Taddei, and Maria-Alejandra Velez. Participation, Social Interaction, and the Use of Climate Information. Submitted to Science and Public Policy.

Working paper - Mueller, Valerie, Alex Pfaff, Kenneth Broad, and Renzo Taddei. Can the Use of Climate-Based Forecasts Raise Ceará's Total Water Availability While Respecting Equity Constraints?

Working paper - Mueller, Valerie, Alex Pfaff, Kenneth Broad, and Renzo Taddei. Measuring the Impact of Improving Water Availability on Rural Household Welfare in Ceará, Brazil: A Multi-Output Primal Approach.

Working paper - Mueller, Valerie, Alex Pfaff, Kenneth Broad, and Renzo Taddei. The Potential for Long Run Consequences of Risk-Coping: Examining Rural Household Labor Supply Responses in Ceará, Brazil.

Book chapter in preparation - Mueller, Valerie, Alex Pfaff, Kenneth Broad, and Renzo Taddei. Rural Household Strategies for Coping with Climate-Induced Water Shocks: Evidence in Ceará, Brazil. To be published by Elgar Publishing in Climate Change in Brazil, edited by Christopher Timmins (Duke University).

Books

In Preparation - Upmanu Lall, Francisco de Assis de Souza Filho, and Renzo Taddei (eds.), Climate, Water and Society. Palisades, NY, and Fortaleza, Brazil: IRI/FUNCEME.

In Preparation - Depois que a chuva nao veio: respostas sociais a secas no Nordeste, na Amazonia e nos Pampas Gaucho.

In Preparation - Of Clouds and Stream, Prophets and Profits: Language, Climate and Politics in the Brazilian Northeast (tentative title). Revision of doctoral dissertation for publication in book format.

Graduate work

Ph.D. dissertation (2005): "Of Clouds and Streams, Prophets and Profits: the Political Semiotics of Climate and Water in the Brazilian Northeast". Nominated for the Bancroft Award 2005. Advisor: Lambros Comitas. Published electronically at http://bdtd.ibict.br.

M.A. thesis (2000): "Discourse, Knowledge and Education - Contributions to the Study of Education without the Metaphysics of Rationalism". Advisor: Vojislav Aleksandar Jovanovic. Published electronically at www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/48/48133/tde-27022002-121434 (Portuguese).

Major fieldwork:

2002-2007: Northeast Brazil.

2001-2002: Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Honors:

Dissertation nominated for the Bancroft Award, Columbia University – 2005

Guest lecturer at the Seminar in Commemoration of the 70^th Anniversary of the First Brazilian Water Law, organized by the Brazilian Association for Water Resources (ABRH). Fortaleza, Brazil, July 9, 2004

Guest lecturer at the Conference on Vulnerability and Hydrometeorological Risk Management in Mexico (organized by CIESAS, UNAM and Colegio de México). Mexico City, May 26 and 27, 2005.

Guest lecturer at CIESAS – Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, as part of ‘Seminário Teórico-Metodológico del Proyecto Gestión de riesgo de desastre ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) en America Latina, Sección México’. Mexico City, March 6, 2003.

Grants and fellowships:

Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant – 2003/2004

Research Institute for the Study of Man/Landes Grant – Summer, 2003

CNPq (Brazilian National Research Council) International Doctoral Studies Scholarship – Fall, 2001 to Spring, 2005

Tinker Grant – Summer, 2001

Columbia University, Teachers College Anthropology Programs Scholarship – Spring, 2001

Columbia University, Teachers College International Scholarship – Fall, 2000

Research Grants:

2006-2007 - Tinker Foundation ($150,000, based at Columbia University): social science co-investigator, Center on Globalization and Sustainable Development, The Earth Institute at Columbia University. Title of the project: Water Allocation, Efficiency and Vulnerability in Northeast Brazil: Mechanisms based on Groups' Behaviors, Perceptions and Recommendations.

2005-2009 - NSF Decision Making Under Uncertainty ($7,189,048, based at Columbia University): co-investigator, Center for Research on Environmental Decisions. For study of individual and group decision-making under imperfect information and climate uncertainty, including fieldwork on different water system stakeholders in Ceará, Brazil.

2005-2007 - NOAA Office of Global Programs, Climate and Societal Interactions Division ($448,346, based at the University of Miami): social science co-investigator. For analyzing impacts of the use of climate information on water decisions on different stakeholders in Ceará, Brazil.

2004-2005 – World Bank/Government of the State of Ceará ($100,000, based at Columbia University): co-principal investigator. For project on designing strategies for improving the effectiveness of the communication of climate information to diverse societal groups in the semi-arid Brazilian Northeast.

Presentations and participation in academic meetings:

2006b - Measuring the Impact of Improving Water Availability on Rural Household Welfare in Ceara, Brazil: A Multi-Output Primal Approach, com Valerie Mueller, Alexander Pfaff, e Kenneth Broad. North American Productivity Workshop, New York University, New York, June 29, 2006.

2007 - Decision making, cultural context, and the "human dimensions" of climate studies. XV annual meeting of the Society for Human Ecology, Rio de Janeiro, October 6, 2007.

Invited lectures

2001 - Notes on an ethnographic study on hooliganism in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Institute of Latin American and Iberian Studies of the School of International and Political Affairs, Columbia University. New York, September 27, 2001.

2003a - Watered down democratization: water management in the semi-arid Brazilian Northeast. Anthropology Programs Colloquium, Teachers College, Columbia University. New York, February 6, 2003.

2003b - Watered Down Democratization: Participatory Development in Water Management in Ceará, Brazil. Seminário Teórico-Metodológico del Proyecto Gestión de riesgo de desastre ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) en America Latina, Sección México. CIESAS - Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social. México City, March 6, 2003.

2004a - Politics and gender in the Brazilian Northeast - Notes on the semiotics of political visibility. Anthropology Department, Social Sciences Division, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana - Iztapalapa. Mexico City, June 10, 2004.

2004b - The social life of water laws: notes and reflections on the Ceará case. Seminar in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Brazilian Water Law, organized by the Brazilian Association for Water Resources (ABRH). Fortaleza, July 9, 2004.

2005a - Lost in translation: drought, climate sciences and public policy in the Brazilian Northeast. Center for Brazilian Studies, Institute of Latin American and Iberian Studies of the School of International and Political Affairs, Columbia University. New York, March 31, 2005.

2005b - Drought, Climate Sciences, and Public Policy in Northeast Brazil. Conference on Vulnerability and Hydrometeorological Risk Management in Mexico (organizado pelo Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México e Colégio de México). Mexico City, May 26 and 27, 2005.

2005c - Climate sciences and society in the Brazilian Northeast: socio-anthropological contributions to understanding the communicative processes related to climate issues. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) - Centro de Ciencias de la Atmósfera, Mexico City, June 1st, 2005.

2005d - Structure and process in evaluations on participation and decentralization in water management. Seminar on the "Evaluation of the Implementation of the National Water Resources Policies, in Brazil and in the State of Ceará", promoted by the Ceará State Metropolitan Basin Water Committee. Fortaleza, Brazil, August 11th, 2005.
2006a - Understanding how meanings get transformed in the dissemination of climate information - the case of Northeast Brazil. Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, Columbia University. New York, March 17, 2006.

2006b - Forecasting meanings: overcoming communicational barriers in the dissemination of
climate information. IRI Seminar - International Research Institute for Climate and Society, Columbia University. Palisades (NY), May 10, 2006.

2006c - The dissemination of meteorological information and the complex relationship between meteorology and society. Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Meteorological Society. Florianópolis, November 30, 2006.

2006d - The Politics of Uncertainty and the Fate of Forecasters - Ethnographic Notes from Northeast Brazil. Ethnography and Social Theory Colloquium, Yale University, Department of Anthropology, December 4, 2006.

2007a - The Politics of Uncertainty and the Fate of Forecasters: Climate, Risk, and Blame in Northeast Brazil. Department of Anthropology Monday Seminar Series at the University of Chicago, March 26, 2007.

2007b - Why we need to understand how societies deal with uncertainty (if we want to understand how they deal with the climate). Picker Center in the School of International and Public Affairs/M.A. Program in Climate and Society, Columbia University, April 11, 2007.

2007c - Gender and the Semiotics of Political Visibility in the Brazilian Northeast. Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies at Yale University, April 19, 2007.

Extra curricular experience and public service:

1993-1994: Councilman at the University Council for Culture and Extension Activities, University of São Paulo.

1993-1994: President of the Student Senate of the Polytechnic School, University of São Paulo, Brazil (Grêmio Politécnico).

1993-1994: Polytechnic Magazine, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; member of the editorial council.

1993-1994: President of the Polytechnic Preparatory Course (Cursinho da Poli). Brazilian NGO created to help underprivileged Brazilian high school students prepare for public university admission exams.

1995-1996: Folha de São Paulo Newspaper, São Paulo, Brazil. Manager of the Folha de São Paulo news and image agency (Agência Folha and Folha Imagem).

2007: Member of the Engineers Without Borders Faculty Advisory Committee, Columbia University.

Languages:

Fluent in English, Portuguese and Spanish. Reading proficiency in French and Italian.