Natalia Duarte-Mayorga

Natalia is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. She studies armed conflicts and peacebuilding efforts as engines of social change in gender orders, contexts of postwar violence, and statebuilding.

Her current research and book project focuses on the case of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Natalia has conducted extensive ethnographic research throughout Colombia, delving into the multiple faces of ex-combatants transitioning into civilian life after decades of war. In a series of collaborative projects, she also employs quantitative techniques to understand the impacts of war and peace on gender equality in local governments.

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 is been the regional coordinator of data collection and analysis for the Latin American and the Caribbean region. During the pandemic, she 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 been funded by the ASA Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant, the Arts and Sciences Summer Research Fellowship, and the Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) at the University of Pittsburgh.