Thea Riofrancos Research Fellow

Thea is the author of Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador (Duke University Press, 2020), the co-author of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal (Verso Books, 2019), and is currently writing a book titled Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism, with W.W. Norton. Her research has been published in academic journals such as Perspectives on Politics, Cultural Studies, World Politics, and Global Environmental Politics, and her public writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, n+1, Dissent, Jacobin and NACLA, among others.

Previously, she was an Andrew Carnegie Fellow (2020-2023), a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University (2020-2021), and a Visiting Researcher at the Nucleo mileno de investigación en energía y sociedad (NUMIES) in Santiago, Chile (2019).

In the fall of 2024, she will join the University of Vienna as the Paul Lazarsfeld guest professor.

Areas of expertise

Extractivism, renewable energy, climate change, the global lithium sector, green technologies, social movements, and the Latin American left.  

Media experience

Thea has been a guest speaker in radio shows, podcasts, webinars, i.a. see: theariofrancos.com/media-appearances

Honours/Awards

Her book Resource Radicals won the Charles Taylor Book Award, bestowed by the American Political Science Association.

Find out more: www.theariofrancos.com