He holds a degree in Sociology and Politics from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (1966), a master's degree in Political Science from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (1981) and a PhD in Political Science from the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (1985). Between 1990 and 1991, with CNPq / Fulbright funding, he carried out a postdoctoral internship at the Dept. of Political Science, Yale University, United States. He coordinated numerous surveys, including that of the government of the state of São Paulo, between 1970 and 1971, in 27 municipalities in the Vale do Paraiba region, collecting data for the Regional Development Consortium-CODIVAP. She worked as a research coordinator at the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Research (CEBRAP) between 1973 and 1976, at the National Research on Human Reproduction in São José dos Campos, SP. She was part of the team coordinated by the Institute for the Development of Political and Social Studies (IDESP), in the pre-election period of 1982, in the research on elections that covered Brazilian capitals and two municipalities in the interior. She was Assistant Professor at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) between 1985 and 1997. From 1997 to 2012, Full Professor at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Brasília, where she also held the position of Director. Fernand Braudel at the European University Institute, Italy. Since 1986, CNPq Research Productivity Scholarship holder. Between 2008 and 2011, member of the Academic Committee of Political Science at CNPq. Working topics: democracy, political participation, gender and politics. In 2011, she held the Brazil Chair, an academic consortium that brings together five prestigious Canadian universities with financial support from the International Development Research Council (Canada) and the Brazilian Embassy in Ottawa. Since December 2011, she has been a member of a research group at the Center for Public Opinion Studies-CESOP-Universidade Estadual de Campinas. As of 2012, she is Principal Researcher of the thematic project "50 years of feminism: Brazil, Argentina and Chile" at the Department of Sociology of the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences at the University of São Paulo.