João Modena

João recently worked as a project analyst at the República Institute, a grantmaking non-profit organization in Brazil, where he helped implement projects aimed at improving people management in the public sector across the country.  Prior to República, he was a political intern for the British Consulate General in Rio de Janeiro.  He has a B.A. in International Relations (IR) from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro where he focused on IR Theory, Human Rights, International Political Economy, and Gender & Sexuality.

If you haven’t guessed, João is originally from Rio, which he claims to be the best city in the world!  Having spent some time there myself for work, it’s hard not to disagree with those white sand beaches, amazing steakhouses and long nights!  João moved to the U.S. a little over a year ago and loves getting out to Austin’s greenbelts to enjoy hiking.  In addition to the terra firma, he is a huge self-proclaimed aviation geek, flying drones around Austin and planes on flight simulators.  Who knows, maybe one day he will get his pilot’s license?  If you go to lunch with him, you may also realize that he’s a rather picky eater as he’s probably one of the few Brazilians that absolutely abhors beans and won’t eat seafood.  Fortunately though he loves to travel and explore new places and cultures, having always been fascinated by languages.  He is quite excited to be joining Texas Global.