I am an Assistant Professor at the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology at Carnegie Mellon University. I hold a BA in Journalism and Mass Communication from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (2002), an MA in Political Science from the University of Chile (2007), and both an MA and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh (2015). Before moving to the US, I worked on the international desks of the newspapers El Mercurio (Chile, 2002-2008) and ABC (Spain, 2008).

As a comparativist, I  focus on two lines of inquiry. First, I study how the personality traits and other individual differences of heads of government impact executive governance. Second, I analyze the consequences of variation in political institutions across countries, with an emphasis on Latin America. I examine executive-legislative relations, informal institutions, gender and politics, and judicial politics.

My book, Presidential Personalities and Constitutional Power Grabs in Latin America, 1945-2021, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press. My work has been published in The American Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Politics, Political Psychology, Democratization, Journal of Legislative Studies, Latin American Politics and Society, Journal of Law and Courts, Latin American Perspectives, América Latina Hoy, Revista de Ciencia Política, Bolivian Studies Journal, Política, and Estudios Internacionales. I have also published book chapters in Oxford University Press, Springer, and FLACSO.

As an extension of my academic work, I am part of the Democratic Erosion consortium, Chile’s country expert for Freedom House since 2016, columnist for latinoamerica21.com, and an affiliated faculty member at CMU’s Center for Informed Democracy & Social-Cybersecurity (IDeaS). I also created and maintain https://latinos-pittsburgh.com. You can contact me at iarana@andrew.cmu.edu.