Camilo Nieto-Matiz

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Geography at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). My research examines political violence, state formation, and criminal governance, with a focus on Latin America. My work addresses three related questions: the transformation of state institutions by elites and violent organizations during conflict; the unintended consequences of violence for political order and citizen behavior; and the legacies of conflict for governance and institutional development.

My research has been published in the British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and World Development, among others. My work has been supported by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. I received my PhD in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame in 2020, an MA in Public Policy from Universität Erfurt, and a BA in Political Science from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, where I was born and raised. Before joining UTSA, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Inter-American Policy and Research (CIPR) at Tulane University.