2000 - 2016 : from Master to PhD
Nínive Machado holds a bachelor's and a master's degree in sociology from the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), in Brazil. Her education was supported by Brazilian government funding.
After completing her master’s degree, Ninive left academia to work in public policy. During this time, she collaborated with international organisations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), focusing on evaluating and improving large-scale social programs. Her work ranged across education, human rights, and poverty reduction, with significant contributions to federal social programmes like Projovem Adolescente and the Conditional Cash Transfer Bolsa Família. This experience sparked her academic interest in understanding how beneficiaries from social policies interact and deal with social programmes in their daily lives, motivating her to return to academia.
In 2016, Nínive started her PhD in Sociology at the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB), located in João Pessoa, Brazil and was supported by a four-year doctoral fellowship from the Brazilian Foundation for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel by the Ministry of Education (CAPES/MEC). Her research explored the moral judgment among beneficiaries of the Bolsa Família Program and how beneficiaries perceive themselves, considering that they are the most socially and economically vulnerable group in the country. Her doctoral journey also took her to Harvard University in 2018-2019 as a Visiting Doctoral Fellow, and after that, she successfully defended her PhD in 2020.
2020 - present : from work in Brazil to a postdoctoral experience in France
After completing her PhD in 2020, Nínive carried out public policy evaluation for the Brazilian Ministry of Education and for the Ministry of Citizenship, and these experiences led her to broaden her field of work and delve deeper into the relationship between equity, inclusion and public policies.
From 2021 to 2024, she worked as a researcher at <s>worked with </s>the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA), in Brasília, on the implementation of the INCLUA platform, which was created in April 2022 to assist public service workers to be aware of the risks of reproducing inequalities while implementing <s>offering</s> public services. During this period, she also got involved in a research collaboration established between IPEA and professor Vincent Dubois (SAGE), on a project entitled Lower Class and Public Institutions (LOCI), leading to her current postdoctoral role. Together with her husband, who was awarded the 2024 Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Study (USIAS) fellowship, Nínive and Rogério Medeiros are carrying out their research together on a project called ‘Family trajectories and public institutions: perceptions and experiences of public policies beneficiaries in a low-income neighborhood in Brazil’.
As a postdoctoral researcher, Ninive continues to explore issues related to social inequality and justice while balancing her academic work with her family life. Their kids aged 12 and 14 attend school at the Vauban International School.
Future career goals
Nínive aspires to continue her sociological research while contributing to innovative projects in social policies.
The USIAS funding will end in July 2025 and Nínive and her family plan to go back to Brazil. When returning to their home country, she wishes to continue collaborating to the operational design and implementation of social policies in Brazil. She believes that her professional path and the knowledge gained from research in the past years can help to improve implementation of public policies in a more equal and equitable way.
She does not desire to stay in Academia even if she would like to be a full-time researcher. In social sciences, in Brazil, working as a researcher in public universities also mean being involved in teaching which is not her main goal. She likes to do research, to design research, to collect data, to analyse it, to write reports, to present her work : tasks which she was able to undertake when she worked in consultancies. To combine research and real-world applications of her findings, she prefers to work in public administrations or in the private sector on projects related to social policies and inclusion even if these positions could be less stable.
Advice for researchers pursuing their careers
Nínive advice to young researchers are to:
« Do something you enjoy »
To be able to complete your PhD in good physical and mental conditions.
« Try to open and broaden your perspectives »
Sometimes you think your paths are restricted to one single route. Don’t be afraid of taking a pause or choosing a “non-linear” career after your PhDs.