Mariana Diaz Chalela

Mariana Díaz Chalela is a Ph.D. candidate in Latin American history at Yale University. Her research interests include the history of international development, state formation, agrarian reform, and the role of law in shaping historical change. Her dissertation, “Borrowing Out of Poverty: Credit and State Formation in the Making of Rural Colombia (1929-1980),” examines the history of agricultural credit policies in Latin America and their connection to state formation and land politics. The MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, the Tinker Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council have generously funded her research at Yale. She is currently a Graduate Affiliate Fellow in the Program for Agrarian Studies and the 2024 recipient of the John Rovensky Fellowship in Business and Economic History.

 

Before coming to Yale, Mariana earned her law degree and an M.A. in History at Universidad de los Andes and worked as a lawyer in Colombia. At Yale, Mariana has coordinated the Program in Agrarian Studies, the Latin American History Speaker Series, the Approaches to Recent and Contemporary History Working Group, and the Latin American Studies Working Group.

 

Prospective students should feel welcome to reach out with any questions about the graduate program in History.