Thea Riofrancos
Associate Professor
Education:
Ph.D. - Political Science University of Pennsylvania
Brief Biography:
Thea Riofrancos is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College, a Strategic Co-Director of the Climate and Community Institute, and a fellow at the Transnational Institute.
Her research focuses on resource extraction, climate change, the energy transition, the global lithium sector, green technologies, social movements, and the Latin American left. These themes are explored in her book, Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador (Duke University Press, 2020), peer-reviewed articles in Perspectives on Politics, Cultural Studies, World Politics, and Global Environmental Politics, essays that have appeared in outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, n+1, Dissent, Jacobin and NACLA, and in her coauthored book, A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal (Verso Books, 2019).
Her next book is Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism, forthcoming with W.W. Norton in September of 2025.
Previously, She was an Andrew Carnegie Fellow (2020-2023), a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University (2020-2021), a Visiting Researcher at the Nucleo mileno de investigación en energía y sociedad (NUMIES) in Santiago, Chile (2019), a Visiting Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame (2014-2015), and held a one-year appointment as a Visiting Researcher at the Facultad de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) in Quito, Ecuador (2011-2012). She received my Ph.D. in political science at the University of Pennsylvania in 2014, and her B.A. from Reed College in 2006.
Area(s) of Expertise:
resource extraction, climate change, the energy transition, the global lithium sector, green technologies, social movements, and the Latin American left.
Selected Presentations:
Riofrancos, T. American Political Science Association Annual Meeting. , Boston - "“A Genealogy of the Comparative Method”" August, 2018
Riofrancos, T. Latin American Studies Association. , Barcelona - "“Populism from the Ground Up”" May, 2018
Riofrancos, T. Radical Democracy. The New School, NYC - "The Demos in Dispute: Radical Democracy, Constituent Power, and Resource Extraction in Ecuador" May, 2017
Detailed CVPersonal website
