Javiera Barandiaran is Assistant Professor in Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research examines how Latin American states build democratic practices, produce economic growth, and deal with environmental problems through the lens of scientific expertise and technological systems. Barandiaran completed her Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley in Environmental Science, Policy and Management. She holds a Masters in Public Policy, also from Berkeley. Her research has been awarded support from the Social Science Research Council and the National Science Foundation, and has been published in Science and Public Policy, Latin American Research Review, Higher Education and the edited volume, Beyond Imported Magic: Essays in Science, Technology and Society in Latin America (2014, MIT Press).