Dr. Daniel Rio Tinto holds a Ph.D. in Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham (UK), where he worked with the Institute for Conflict, Cooperation and Security (ICCS). His doctoral thesis is entitled ‘Tracing the Security Dilemma in Civil Wars: how fear and insecurity can lead to intra-state violence?’ and evaluates the performance of the Security Dilemma as an explanation for the outbreak of violence in civil wars, drawing from the cases of post-decolonization violence in Angola and Mozambique. Daniel also holds a Master in Political Science and International Relations at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Lisbon’s New University (NOVA-FCSH) and a BA in International Relations from Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). Daniel’s broad research interests include International Relations Theory, International Security, Conflict Studies, Defence Studies, Political Violence, Civil Wars & Intra-State Conflicts, Nuclear Politics, The Changing Character of War, Insurgencies & Asymmetric Warfare, Peace Operations, Civil Defence & Safety, Strategy on Conventional (Air, Land & Sea) & Non-Conventional (NBC, Remote, Cyber, Space) Environments, Case-study Methodology and Process Tracing Techniques. His regional expertise covers sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

Currently, Dr. Rio Tinto is a Nuclear Security Fellow (Stanton Foundation) with the School of International Relations, Fundação Getúlio Vargas, São Paulo (FGV-SP), where he is working on a project on the impact of armed violence and criminal activities on the nuclear security challenges and policies, particularly looking at Brazil’s context, and part of a wider project on the relationship between nuclear politics and internal conflict. Previously, Daniel has contributed to the Brazilian Naval War College (EGN), the Brazilian Peace Operations Joint Training Center (CCOPAB), the Portuguese Institute of International Relations (IPRI), the Portuguese Institute for National Defence (IDN) and Oxford Analytica.