Wendy Chávez is an economist (Polytechnic School of Guayaquil, Ecuador) and holds a master’s degree in public administration (New York, USA) and a master’s degree in human settlements (KU Leuven, Belgium). She is a junior researcher and PhD student in Political and Cultural Change at the Center for Development Research of the University of Bonn. Her thesis project is about conflicts caused in the small-scale fisheries due to the large-sale fisheries, and coastal dynamics in the Gulf of Guayaquil, with a focus on power, community justice, corruption, gangs´ operations and knowledge mobility. She has worked in the Ecuadorian academia, government sector, and civil society organizations. She is a founder member of the Observatory of Public Policy of Guayaquil. She also performs voluntarily as the Academic Coordinator of the local organization Fundación Cerro Verde, which works actively with ancestral communities of the Gulf of Guayaquil to conserve the mangrove ecosystem.
Country/Region of interest/research focus: Gulf of Guayaquil, Ecuador