Taina Garcia Maia

Tainá Garcia Maia is a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Human Rights Erlangen-Nürnberg (CHREN). Her current research explores the use of equality as a tool for the judicialization of poverty through a comparative study of Latin American apex courts. Other research areas in her postdoctoral work include inequality and social stratification, democracy and autocratization, and law and politics, with a focus on Latin American institutions.

Tainá completed her PhD in Law summa cum laude in 2023 at the University of Münster and the Federal University of Minas Gerais, focusing on the interconnections between poverty and inequality in Brazil. She holds a Master’s degree in the Theory and Practice of Human Rights from the University of Oslo, where she was awarded a Fritt Ord Student Scholarship.

Prior to joining CHREN, she was a research fellow at the University of Münster for the ERC-Consolidator Grant project “Correcting Inequality through Law”. Her professional experience includes positions as a visiting scholar at the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court, a visiting professional at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and a special adviser at the Permanent Mission of Brazil to the United Nations in New York. She is the author of the book Judging Poverty and Inequality in Brazil (Oxford University Press, 2026).