Danilo A. Contreras , Ph.D.

Biography

Danilo Antonio Contreras is assistant director at the Social Science Research Institute at Penn State University. At SSRI, he provides strategic leadership for new initiatives, manages the external advisory committee, and supports interdisciplinary, applied, and public-engaged research initiatives—from proposal development to implementation. As a member of SSRI’s executive committee, he also co-leads strategic planning and evaluation activities and supports funding mechanisms for faculty recruitment, research, and development.

In addition to his role at SSRI, Danilo is assistant teaching professor in the School of Public Policy, where he teaches courses on race and social welfare policies in the United States and Latin America. Danilo’s research broadly focuses on how, when, and why marginalized populations in Latin America mobilize politically and contest social policies. He is currently completing a book manuscript on the effects of ethno-nationalism and migration on political behavior in Latin America, particularly in Afro-Latin America. Research from this project has been published in the Latin American Research Review.

Most recently, Danilo was assistant professor of political science at Wellesley College. He has also been a fellow at the Afro-Latin American Research Institute at Harvard University, past president of the New England Council on Latin American Studies, and country co-editor for the Latin American Public Opinion Project at Vanderbilt University. Prior to entering graduate school, he worked in the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a policy-think tank in Washington, D.C. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and an A.B. from Georgetown University.