Helena is a Brazilian legal scholar and data analyst whose research investigates the intersection of electoral law, constitutional jurisprudence, and political accountability. She is currently a J.S.D. candidate at Yale Law School and works as a researcher at the Center for Regulation and Democracy (CRD) at Insper. She holds a Bachelor of Laws and a Master’s degree in Political Science from the University of São Paulo (USP). Her background includes an exchange program at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and advanced data science training at Insper.
Her academic agenda relies on empirical methodologies and data science to track political competition and the legal design of campaign finance frameworks. Funari’s scholarship explores how court decisions shape electoral outcomes and the overall stability of the democratic process. Her co-authored empirical work, such as her notable 2024 analysis published in the Revista Direito GV, examines how political competition plays out within the judicial oversight of democratic processes, using landmark Federal Supreme Court (STF) rulings as case studies. In addition to her research, she teaches at the Escola de Formação of the Brazilian Society of Public Law (SBDP) and has served as a policy researcher translating empirical judicial data into actionable briefs.