Bringing scientific insight to global challenges
Connecting scientific evidence with international policy debates to support fair, sustainable, and evidence-based global action.
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Trusted by many organizations
Global impact
Academic Journey
Born and raised in the bustling Megalopolis of Central Mexico, Lorena E. Olarte is a Mexican-Viennese political scientist, researcher and communicator. For more than fifteen years, her work has moved between non-profit and international organizations, communications, research and academia.
Her academic journey began at UNAM’s Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, part of one of Latin America’s leading public universities, where she studied Communication and Journalism. It later took her to Paris, where she completed a Master’s degree in Political Science and Sustainable Development at Sciences Po, continental Europe’s best-known institution for the study of politics and the social sciences. She is currently completing her PhD in Political Science at the University of Vienna.
Her research interests have developed from questions encountered along the way: how societies respond to environmental and political change, how people organize and challenge existing structures, and how questions of justice, power and different ways of understanding the world shape these processes. Her work brings together international politics, contentious politics, political ecology and socio-ecological transformations, with a particular focus on Mexico and Latin America and its connections with global challenges.
Experience
Research has never been completely separate from practice. Lorena has worked across project management, strategic communications, fundraising, advocacy and stakeholder engagement, collaborating with international and interdisciplinary teams in academic, non-profit and international settings.
This experience informs both her research and her work with organizations: asking questions, listening to different perspectives, connecting ideas and people, and finding practical ways to move projects forward.
Languages are also part of that journey. Spanish is her native language, and she works professionally in English, German and French. She also has knowledge of Italian and Portuguese and, has ventured into Nahuatl, Mandarin and Basque.
