Research

Contemporary societies are marked by substantial disparities in rewards and opportunities across groups and individuals. These disparities arise from processes that unfold throughout the life course—from birth, through childhood and adolescence, into adulthood and old age. In this line of research, I investigate what leads to better outcomes, focusing on how advantages and disadvantages emerge and accumulate over time.

• Exceptions to Women’s Advantage: How High School Rurality, Republican Counties, and Economic Structure Shape Gender Gaps in Educational Attainment (2025) - Sociological Science [forthcoming]

• Who Bets on College? Gendered Postsecondary Choices Across Dropout Risk and Parental Education (2025) - Research on Social Stratification and Mobility

• Who Differentiates by Skin Color? Status Attributions and Skin Pigmentation in Chile (2019) - Frontiers in Psychology

• “Leaving the Faith of Our Fathers”: Intergenerational Persistence and Class Cleavage of Evangelicals in Chile (2019) - Review of Religious Research

• Socioeconomic Characteristics of Young Indigenous People in Chile (2016) - Book Chapter [in Spanish]

• When Personal Success doesn’t turn into Social Mobility: the Case of ‘Frustrated Achievers’ in Chile (2015) - Working Paper [in Spanish]

Our social ties play a crucial role in shaping who we are and what we do; consequently, who we interact with—and how—is critical for understanding ourselves and the social world. In this line of research, I examine the processes that lead us to interact with some people rather than others, how these interactions shape our self-concepts and worldviews, and how these socially informed views influence our behavior.

• The Ties that Bind: Socioeconomic Segregation in Personal Networks, Populism, and Prosociality (2024) - Ph.D. Dissertation

  • Winner of the 2023 Geoffrey Tootell Outstanding Dissertation-in-Progress Award from the American Sociological Association's Mathematical Sociology Section

  • Winner of the 2025 UCSD Chancellor's Dissertation Medal for outstanding doctoral dissertation

• Scope and Limitations of Name Generators in Describing Ego Networks in Representative Surveys (2023) - Book Chapter [in Spanish]

• Intergroup Relations affect Depressive Symptoms of Indigenous People: Longitudinal Evidence (2023) - European Journal of Social Psychology

• Expectations of Trustworthiness in Cross-Status Interactions (2021) - Social Science Research

• Intercultural Relations between Mapuche and non-Mapuche: Inequality, Segregation, and Autonomy (2017) - Centro de Estudios Públicos [in Spanish]

Contemporary life constantly requires us to evaluate matters far beyond the scope of our personal experience. Yet direct interactions, despite their limited reach, are especially influential in shaping how we see the world. In this line of research, I study how people use limited personal experiences to infer the state of broader social phenomena.

• Fairness beyond the ballot: A comparative analysis of failures of electoral integrity, perceptions of electoral fairness, and attitudes towards democracy across 18 countries (2024) - Electoral Studies

• How they Love a Friend in Chile when He is Foreign”: Chilean Attitudes towards Immigration (2019) - Centro de Estudios Públicos [in Spanish]

• The experience and perception of corruption: A comparative study in 34 societies (2019) - International Journal of Sociology

• Malaise in Chile? CEP Survey Report (2016) - Centro de Estudios Públicos [in Spanish]

What citizens think about matters of public interest is of central importance for democratic governance, as politicians aim to align themselves with the views of their constituents to compete in elections.  My work on this area has focussed on how citizens' preferences and attitudes relate to one another, and what drives people to participate in elections.

• Machistas, Xenophobes, and Authoritarians? Traditionalism and value controversies in Chile (2017) - Centro de Estudios Públicos [in Spanish]

• A Likely-Voter Model for the CEP Survey (2017) - Centro de Estudios Públicos [in Spanish]

• Composition of the Electorate in Elections with Compulsory and Voluntary Voting: A Quasi-Experimental Study of Voter Turnout in Chile (2015) - RLOP [in Spanish]

  • Winner of the 2014 Edgard Catterberg Best Paper Award from WAPOR LatAm Conference

• Perceived Conflict in Chile: a Public Opinion Analysis 2006-2013 (2015) - Book Chapter [in Spanish]

• Citizen Participation in the 2012 Municipal Elections: Diagnosis and Proposals on Voluntary Voting (2013) - Book Chapter [in Spanish]