Pedro do Carmo Baumgratz de Paula is the Regional Director for Vital Strategies in Brazil. De Paula has focused his work and research over the past 15 years on policy innovation, urban studies, regulation, and public health. He was in charge of establishing Vital Strategies’ Brazil office, selecting its team and developing strategies for locally relevant projects and practices.
Before joining Vital Strategies, de Paula developed a broad experience in academia, consultancy on policy issues, and legal practice. He lectured in law at his alma mater, the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, practiced administrative and regulatory law, and consulted on a variety of regulatory and policy issues.
Pedro’s achievements include helping develop a comprehensive road safety plan that will guide the São Paulo’s actions for the next decade, and fostering the improvement of policymaking by the systematic use of data in multiple governmental entities in Brazil. He played a leading role in helping CONASS (national consortium of state departments of health) and other public health authorities in Brazil in developing innovative and rapid data use tools to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
More recently, Pedro and the Vital Strategies team have assisted the development of pioneering solutions to use data, AI and communication to drive action towards an array of public health priorities such as mental health, gender-based violence, NCDs, among others.
He holds an LL.B. (J.D. equivalent) from the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, a M.Sc. and Ph.D in Economic Law and Political Economy from the University of São Paulo’s Law School. Pedro also took a visiting period for his PhD research, focused on state capacity for government innovation in public health, at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, during the fall of 2021.