What brought you to the USA?
Ever since I was a kid I wanted to study and live abroad (I guess this is why I graduated in International Relations in the first place), and in the US especially, which I called my “big adventure”. So, when the opportunity came to do my Ph.D., I only applied to American schools. I was driven by both my curiosity about the American culture and by the level of excellence of US graduate education. I particularly liked the structure of Ph.D. programs (coursework and dissertation), the informality of social relations in academia, and the smoothness of networking.

In what are you currently working on?
My work is related to American agricultural policy, specifically the change that occurred in the 1990’s towards a new type of farm income support, one that is decoupled from current production – meaning payments are awarded to farmers independently of what, how much, or whether they produce. The idea underlying this change is that if decoupled payments do not distort prices, they should not affect production or international trade. But production effects may occur through many mechanisms, for example credit constraints. Suppose you are a farmer who would like to buy more land or a machine but the bank will not give you the loan you need in order to do so. If the government gives you a subsidy, suddenly you can buy that land or machine and invest on the farm. This is a production distortion, which is incompatible with recent commitments the US and the EU, for example, have made in the World Trade Organization to decrease trade distorting farm support. My analyses look at how many more acres of land are being put to production or how the productivity of certain crops has increased as a consequence of these subsidies for farmers who are credit constrained.

What conditions do you have here that you do not have in Portugal?
Financial aspects aside, access to data would have to be my first response. In the US, if the data are not readily available, a few calls to an American agency or to a University who owns them will usually solve the problem (I have colleagues in Portugal who wait years to get their hands on data!). The second thing that comes to my mind is the easiness of cooperation, even with colleagues who are in distant universities. Finally, punctuality, which I think walks hand in hand with efficiency (in Portugal, it is common for a meeting to be scheduled for a particular time and effectively begin ten to twenty minutes later, if not more, as some people preemptively adjust their behavior in order to avoid waiting for others). All these help foster more and better research in the US.I must, however, acknowledge the change that has occurred in Portuguese academia, upping the ante on high quality research. We do not, however, in general, have the level of funding American universities have, so we must make do with a lot less.

What are your future plans?
I am considering moving back to the US, mainly for personal reasons. My husband is American and an Assistant Professor in an American university, and no matter how many different types of cod recipes or duck rice I make him eat while vacationing in Portugal, he still prefers to live (and work) in the US. I will then look for a research and teaching position in an American University.

Why did you join PAPS?
A colleague of mine told me about PAPS shortly after I started the Ph.D. program. I did not know any Portuguese in the Raleigh area and he thought this might be a way of finding fellow patricians. While I did not, it was most interesting to find out what other graduate students were doing research-wise and to learn about their interests and day-to-day lives.