Laura Neftaly López-Pérez

Areas of Interest: Political and criminal violence, contentious politics, mixed methods

Laura’s research examines the intersection of political and criminal violence, impunity, and contentious politics in Latin America, especially in Mexico.

At Notre Dame, Laura conducts research on the mobilization of families of victims in high-risk contexts of criminal wars. She analyzes why mobilization of families of victims varies depending on the type of victimization. This research agenda builds on her previous research on the collective action of families of disappeared persons in Mexico. She has presented the findings in this research at number conferences and publications.

In addition to her main research, Laura works at the Violence and Transitional Justice Lab at Notre Dame, where she collaborates with other students and faculty on research about selective violence in Mexico, and public opinion on militarization in Latin America.

Laura specializes in mixed methodological design. She has worked as the Statistics Consultant for the Department of Political Science. She, together with Mayra Ortiz-Ocaña, proposes a novel use of focus groups for qualitative process tracing.

Laura received her BA in Communication Studies from ITESO University and her MA in Social Sciences from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO Mexico).