Natalia Duarte-Mayorga

Natalia is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh, where she examines how armed conflicts and peacebuilding processes drive transformations in gender relations, postwar violence, and state formation.

Her current research—and the focus of her forthcoming book—centers on the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). She has carried out extensive ethnographic fieldwork across Colombia, investigating the complex processes through which ex-combatants reintegrate into civilian life after years of armed conflict. In addition to her ethnographic work, Natalia collaborates on projects that apply quantitative methods to assess how war and peace influence gender equality in local governance.

Natalia is part of the Gender Equality in Public Administration research team, an interdisciplinary project created by the Gender Inequality Research Lab (GIRL at Pitt) in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). She has been the regional coordinator of data collection and analysis for the Latin American and the Caribbean region. Natalia also worked as an intern at the Panama UNDP headquarters.

Previously, Natalia worked as a researcher and consultant in local NGOs in Colombia, such as The Center for Law, Justice, and Society (Dejusticia), CODHES, and Vortex, on issues related to the civil war, statebuilding, forced displacement, land restitution, macro-victimization of the armed conflict, state cooptation, and national and transnational criminal networks.

Natalia’s doctoral research has received support from the ASA Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant, as well as the Arts and Sciences Summer Research Fellowships and the Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) at the University of Pittsburgh.