Cristina Echeverri-Pineda is a historian and has a PhD in political science. Currently, she is an assistant professor of political science at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Echeverri-Pineda has expertise in state formation, social movements, and democracy in Latin America, and her research has focused on Afro-descendant social movements from a comparative perspective. She has publications on constitutional recognition and international norms for Afro-descendants in the Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies and Colombia Internacional journals. She has also published book chapters about ethnic political participation and representation in Latin America, and about local politics and participatory budgeting.