Uniting
Research and Policy

Andrea Mariño Varela, MPP'23, is a recent Harris School of Public Policy graduate. She worked as a research assistant for Associate Professor of Political Science Michael Albertus. Her academic interests include inequality, social policy, political economy, international development, and global conflict. 

Prior to her time at the University of Chicago, Mariño Varela served in the Colombian National Land Agency at the Large-Scale Rural Formalization and Adjudication Directorate as a multi-level governance, monitoring, and strategic communications advisor. There, she led the monitoring of the Directorate’s activities, coordinating with the Agency’s regional offices to achieve the short-term goals established by the Comprehensive Rural Reform, the first pillar of the peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP guerrilla, and a component of the National Multipurpose Cadastre Project. 

Previously, Mariño Varela worked at the Colombian House of Representatives as an advisor to the President of the Constitutional First Commission, where she led an investigation about decriminalization of the use and possession of drugs for personal use, based upon the principle of harm reduction; as a press assistant to former Colombian Vice President and Chief Negotiator in the peace process with the FARC-EP guerrilla, Humberto De La Calle, during his presidential campaign; and as a consultant in public affairs and strategic communications in the private sector.

Mariño Varela holds an undergraduate degree in political science with a minor in journalism from Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, and studied at the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals and the University of St. Gallen, in Spain and Switzerland respectively.