Hometown: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Bio: Natalia Aruj is a master’s candidate at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where she studies at the Center for Latin American Studies with a concentration in Political Economy and Development. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she graduated from Binghamton University with a double major in Political Science and Sociology. She was nominated for the President’s Award for Undergraduate Excellence and received the Edward H. Prentice Award. Natalia has worked with the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO), where she helped develop the agenda on socioenvironmental challenges for an academic congress and contributed to policy evaluation and monitoring initiatives. At the Center for the Implementation of Public Policies for Equity and Growth (CIPPEC), she worked with the Economic Development Program. In summer 2026, she worked with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), mapping mining governance and institutions across several Latin American countries. She currently works with the Organization of American States’ Special Representative for Haiti, analyzing the country’s interconnected political, security, and socioeconomic crises. Her research interests focus on illicit economies in Latin America, particularly the effects of mercury trafficking and illegal gold mining on local communities.
Research Area – Substantive: Natural resource extractivism, governance, economic development, socio-environmental challenges, energy transition, and emerging leaderships in Latin America
Research Area – Geographic: Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, and the Amazon region