I was born and raised in Montevideo, Uruguay. I studied law in Uruguay, and then emigrated to Israel, where I did my B.A. and master in political science and international relations at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In 2011, I came to the US to do my PhD in political science at the University of Florida, which I completed in 2018. My doctoral dissertation examined the effects of policing and police violence on residents of South Los Angeles and São Paulo’s peripheries. I am interested in continuing to examine the effects of policing in low-income communities, Black, Latinos and Native communities. I am also interested in studying the development of punitive legal policies, and US tough-on-crime policing in Latin America, in particular in Uruguay, and how they affect the criminalization of race and the radicalization of "others." I have published articles in the Journal of Social Justice, International Studies Perspectives, and International Studies Review, as well as chapters in different Handbooks and edited books. I have published opinion and analysis articles in La Diaria (Uruguay), L.A. Progressive (US) and Nueva Sion (Argentina). I am married and father of two boys. As a proud Uruguayan, fútbol (soccer) is my religion. In the words of Luis Omar Tapia "90 minutos del deporte más hermoso del mundo."