João Alcántara is a second-year Master in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) student at Harvard Kennedy School, where he is a Lemann Scholar. He holds a B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering from Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, Brazil.

Before coming to Harvard, João worked as a data scientist for one of Latin America’s largest financial institutions, where he used machine learning to solve retail and investment banking business problems. He also has public sector consulting experience, having worked with the governments of Brazil, Estonia and México in projects ranging from science and technology promotion to government digitalization to private sector development. His interests are focused on the impact of machine learning on economics and public policy, government digital transformation, political economics and public economics.