José O. Pérez is a Ph.D. candidate majoring in International Relations and Comparative Politics, with research interests in migration and refugee policies, security studies, global health politics, and political violence. His regional focus is on Latin America, in particular, Brazil.

Pérez’s dissertation is entitled, “Welcoming Migrants and Refugees: Governance, Labor, and Integration of Venezuelans in Brazil,” which examines how Global South states respond to mass migration influxes that occur in short periods of time with innovative policy efforts. Specifically, it answers the questions: who governs migration at the grassroots level and how? And how are migrants and refugees integrated into local, small communities? Pérez answers these questions through extensive fieldwork, semi-structure interviews, and participant observations conducted over the course of twelve months and multiple field sites across Brazil, with funding from the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Grant. Pérez was also selected as a 2021 Diversity Fellow by the American Political Science Association and awarded a graduate student research grant by the Mershon Center for International Security Studies. 

Pérez holds an M.A. in International Strategic Studies from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS, 2019) in Porto Alegre, Brazil. He also holds a B.A. in Political Science and Latin American Studies from the University of Florida (UF, 2014), and was a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Fellow in Brazil (2015, 2016). His research publications include articles in Security Studies, Security Dialogue, International Feminist Journal of Politics, and Latin American Perspectives.