Full professor at the Department of History at the University of São Paulo (USP) and a research fellow from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). She has been a visiting professor at the University of Michigan and has also been a visiting fellow at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, and visiting fellow at the University of Newcastle (UK). She was the Brazilian coordinator of the project Mothering Slaves: Comparative Perspectives on Motherhood, Childlessness and the Care of Children in Atlantic Slave Societies, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK). In addition, she is the author of books and articles on slavery, abolition, post-abolition, quilombos, history of the press and history of slave women.