Samantha is an ethnographer interested in understanding how people work and organize towards social change in complex and often hostile environments. She has a Bachelors in International Relations, a Masters in Public Policy and Public Administration and a PhD in Management. Previous to coming to Nova SBE, she worked as an assistant professor in the Public Administration Division at CIDE in Mexico. Beyond academia, she works with government organizations, civil society, activists, and public servants to find better ways of organizing. She co-organizes the Ethnography Atelier, a collaborative space that offers seminars, workshops, and podcasts on ethnography and other qualitative methods to a worldwide audience.

Samantha´s research examines how people organize and work towards social change—through public policy, political collective action, or grassroots organizing—in complex and often hostile environments. She is particularly interested in understanding how public, voluntary, or paid workers, working towards social change, experience challenges in their everyday efforts. Also how, in response to these challenges, they develop practices, processes, and relationships that shape organizational resilience and goals. She has conducted studies on migration, social policy, public administration, regulation, grassroots organizing, and strike action. In her research she uses qualitative methods and in particular organizational ethnography.