Dr. Mauricio Vieira (Brazil) is Assistant Professor and Head of the Chair on Countering Illicit Trade and Preventing Transnational Organized Crime at the University for Peace. Prior to this position, he assumed a position as Visiting Doctoral Researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) in Oslo, Norway; at the Graduate Institute in Geneva (Switzerland); and at the University for Peace (Costa Rica). He obtained his Ph.D. in International Politics and Conflict Resolution and a MA in International Relations with a focus on Peace and Security Studies (both from the University of Coimbra, Portugal); a Specialization Diploma in International Law and BA in Journalism, these last two degrees from the University of Fortaleza, Brazil.
His areas of research focus transnational organized crime and state fragility and ‘post-conflict’ peacebuilding under the scope of the UN.
He is currently a member of the Network Expert at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), an external associate researcher at the Laboratory on the Study of Conflict and Violence, associated at the Ceará State University, in Brazil.