Belén Fernández Milmanda holds a PhD in Political Science from Harvard University. She researches how economic elites influence policy making in Latin America with a focus on distributive and environmental politics. Her award-winning book, Agrarian Elites and Democracy in Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2024), studies the strategies (electoral and non-electoral) that agrarian elites employ to make democracy work to their advantage.

Professor Fernández Milmanda has also studied the political determinants of forest protection in the Argentine Chaco Forest. 

Professor Fernández Milmanda is currently working on two new research projects. In one, she explores the challenges that tackling climate change creates for democracies in the developing world. In the other, together with Andrea Vilán at American University, they study the determinants of Latin American countries adherence to the Escazú Agreement, the first international treaty in the world to protect the lives of environmental defenders. 

She holds a MA in Political Science from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Argentina and a BA in Sociology from the University of Buenos Aires. 

Her work has appeared in World Development, Politics and Society, and the Oxford Research Encyclopedia on Latin American Politics.