Laís Forti Thomaz

Laís Forti Thomaz is currently Chief of Staff at the National Secretariat for Oil, Natural Gas, and Biofuels (SNPGB) at the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) in Brazil. She serves as the MME representative on the Management Committee of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Sector Fund (CT-Petro), part of the National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development (FNDCT), and on CAEP Working Group 5 (Aviation Fuels) at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).She participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the U.S. Department of State. She holds a Bachelors degree in International Relations from UNESP, including an exchange program at ISCTE in Lisbon through a Santander Scholarship. Laís is a specialist in lobbying, with training from the Public Affairs and Advocacy Institute in Washington, DC, and the European Public Affairs and Advocacy Institute in Brussels, both affiliated with American University. She earned her Masters and Ph.D. in International Relations from the San Tiago Dantas Graduate Program (UNESP, UNICAMP, and PUC-SP), and conducted a research internship at Georgetown University with funding from BEPE/FAPESP. She also completed postdoctoral research at the same program with two research fellowships: PNPD/CAPES (2017) and PDJ/CNPq (20172018). Her second postdoctoral fellowship was carried out at the Department of Latin American Studies in the Comparative Studies on the Americas Program (PPGECsA) at the University of Brasília (UnB) from 2021 to 2022. She also completed a summer course in Mandarin and Chinese Culture at Hubei University, China, through the Confucius Institute at UNESP. Laís is an Associate Professor at the Federal University of Goiás (UFG), where she teaches in the International Relations undergraduate program and the Graduate Program in Political Science and International Relations (PPGCPRI). She served as Secretary for International Relations at UFG from 2022 to 2024. She is a researcher with the Brazilian Network for Biojetfuel and Renewable Hydrocarbons for Aviation (RBQAV), the Center for Global Studies (NEG/UFG), the Center of Excellence in Hydrogen and Sustainable Technologies (CEHTES/UFG), and the TED project of the Secretariat of Civil Aviation (SAC) of the Ministry of Ports and Airports, in partnership with UFJF. Her work focuses on public policy and sustainable aviation fuels. She is the recipient of the Top Ethanol Award (2011) and the National Ethanol Conference Academic Award (2015) in the United States. Laís is a founding member of the Sergio Vieira de Mello Chair and the Camões Chair at UFG, and currently serves as the Coordinator of the Jean Monnet Chair of the European Union at UFG. She was also a Civil Society Representative on the National Council for Energy Policy (CNPE), an advisory body to the Presidency of the Republic of Brazil. (Source: Lattes Curriculum)