Paola Arantes is a Brazilian dual-degree student at Columbia University and Sciences Po Paris, studying History and Political Science. Her work focuses on Latin America, including U.S. foreign policy in the region, state capacity, and security. She served as a Sixth Committee Intern at the Permanent Mission of Costa Rica to the UN, supporting international law reports and Latin American cooperation, and interned with the World Bank Group in BrasÃlia, researching fiscal reform and social protection programs at the state level. Her academic work draws on fieldwork in Brazil examining the relationship between state capacity, organized crime, and social justice. She is also deeply interested in the role of gender in extremist ideological movements, having worked as a research assistant at Columbia mapping the institutional networks behind political movements in the U.S
