Beatriz Silva da Costa
Ph.D. candidate, University of Virginia
Predoctoral Fellow, Georgetown University (2025–26)
On the 2026–2027 Academic Job Market
Ph.D. candidate, University of Virginia
Predoctoral Fellow, Georgetown University (2025–26)
On the 2026–2027 Academic Job Market
I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia and a Predoctoral Fellow at the School of Foreign Service and Department of Government, Georgetown University. In the spring of 2025, I was a Visiting Researcher at the Getulio Vargas Foundation's São Paulo School of Business Administration (FGV EAESP).
My research examines how political institutions — bureaucracies, accountability bodies, electoral rules, and local governments — structure the distribution of public goods, and how elites and criminal organizations capture those institutions to entrench economic and political inequality. It bridges quantitative and qualitative methods, combining causal inference, computational text analysis, and machine learning with fieldwork and interviews.
My work has appeared in Revista E-Legis and the Journal of the General Comptroller of the Union, as well as in edited volumes on democracy and anti-corruption policy. My research has been supported by the Carl Menger Fellowship at the Mercatus Center, the Bankard Fund for Political Economy at UVA, the Institute for Humane Studies, the UVA Center for Global Inquiry & Innovation, the Quandt Fund for International Research, the UVA Quantitative Collaborative, the Lemann Foundation, and the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).
“Bea is an awesome, effective, and passionate teacher who anyone would be lucky to have. I truly learned a ton in this course.”
“Bea's teaching style, which combines some lecture with small-group discussion, videos, and role-playing scenarios, really made the class time whiz by.”
“She clearly cares about her students and went out of her way to provide excellent guidance on how to write good papers.”
Student course evaluations
“Beatriz was a great instructor, very kind, understanding, and engaging. Big fan.”
“The TA clearly put in a lot of effort into the discussion section presentations and content.”
“I appreciated the effort to involve everyone in discussion. My opinions and statements felt valued, which is very important for discussions.”
Student course evaluations
“Bea is a fantastic TA who really cares about her students.”
“Beatriz did a great job summarizing the material at the end of the week, which was very helpful.”
“She was very helpful when writing our research papers and constantly looked for ways to make us better prepared to write them.”
Student course evaluations
“She's knowledgeable, receptive, and she's honestly the best TA I've had so far.”
“The topics we learned about in class would often be complex and confusing for me, but I always felt like she clarified everything for us in a very organized way.”
“She really tried her best to prepare everyone as well as possible for the midterm and final papers and gave really good feedback.”
Student course evaluations
Download the full CV for publications, presentations, teaching, and service.
Download CV (PDF)In addition to my research, I'm passionate about photography. Follow me at @lifethroughbia on Instagram.
