Raquel is a Brazilian legal scholar, economic law professor, and institutional integrity expert specializing in law and development, public policy, anti-corruption frameworks, and political economy. She serves as a permanent faculty member at the Getulio Vargas Foundation Law School in São Paulo (FGV Direito SP), where she teaches across the undergraduate and graduate programs and co-coordinates the Nucleus for Law and Political Economy (NUDEP). She holds a Bachelor of Laws, a Master’s degree, and a Ph.D. in Economic Law and Political Economy from the University of São Paulo (USP). Her academic trajectory includes international research fellowships at Yale Law School (as a Fulbright Scholar) and Georgetown University Law Center, followed by a Global Fellow postdoctoral residency at FGV.
Her interdisciplinary research explores the intersection of economic power, public regulation, and democratic structures in the Global South. As a lead researcher coordinating the Brazilian studies for the international Project on Autocratic Legalism (PAL), she investigates how formal legal instruments and historical institutional legacies can be manipulated by executive administrations to facilitate democratic backsliding. Her publications evaluate public-private relationships, including the evolutionary mechanics and contract designs of leniency agreements under Brazil’s Anti-Corruption Act. Her scholarship has received significant institutional recognition, including the Prêmio Destaques de Pesquisa FGV and the Prêmio ABEU in Applied Social Sciences.
Beyond academia, Pimenta contributes to national public policy and administration. She is a sitting member of the Council for Transparency, Integrity, and Combatting Corruption (CTICC), an official advisory body that provides strategic recommendations to the federal Office of the Comptroller General (CGU).