Natalia is a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, where she currently is a Research Associate at the Center on the Politics of Development. Her main research interests are in comparative politics and the political economy of development, focusing on corruption, public goods provision, and accountability in Latin America. She also studies the formation of citizen and ex-combatant attitudes and their role in stabilizing peace in post-conflict settings. In her book project, she explores the information and institutional environments that pave the way for outsider candidates’ rise and success. She holds an M.A. in Economics from the University of Los Andes (Colombia). Before coming to Berkeley, she worked at the World Bank, the Observatory of Democracy, and Colombia’s National Planning Department.