Thea Riofrancos

Associate Professor

Contact Information:

triofran@providence.edu

401.865.1291

Howley Hall 305

Education:

Ph.D. - Political Science University of Pennsylvania

Brief Biography:

Thea Riofrancos is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College, an Andrew Carnegie Fellow (2020-2022), and a member of the Climate + Community Project. Her research focuses on resource extraction, renewable energy, climate change, green technology, social movements, and the left in Latin America. These themes are explored in her book, Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador (Duke University Press, 2020), as well as in peer-reviewed articles in Perspectives on Politics, Cultural Studies, World Politics, and Global Environmental Politics (forthcoming), 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).

She is currently writing a book titled Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism, with W.W. Norton.

Previously, she was 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, renewable energy, climate change, lithium, green technology, social movements, and the left in Latin America.

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 CV
Personal website