Thais Mascarenhas is a Senior Project Analyst in the Sustainable Agrifood Systems Area of the Forests and Land Use Program at WRI Brasil, where she supports the Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU) Brasil.

She has more than 20 years of experience in socio-environmental projects in the fields of sustainable food systems, family farming, agroecology, and the solidarity economy. Throughout her career, she has collaborated with small civil society organizations, universities, and public institutions, and has led short food supply chain projects at Instituto Kairós in partnership with the Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA) and the Ministry of Labor and Employment (MTE) in Brazil. She also worked as a consultant for FOLU Brasil during its initial phase.

Thais holds a degree in Economics and a master’s in Education, both from the University of São Paulo (USP), where she carried out research and outreach activities at the Technological Incubator for Popular Cooperatives (ITCP-USP) and at the Solidarity Economy Center (NESOL-USP). In her free time, she enjoys taking care of her small farm in the Ribeira Valley and hiking to waterfalls in the Atlantic Forest.