About Me

Hi, I’m Thais Amorim. I am a researcher and legal professional working at the intersection of public policy, social psychology, and governance. My academic and professional trajectory has been driven by a central question: how do institutions shape human behavior and how can they be redesigned to prevent violence and foster trust?

I was born and raised in Sobral, Brazil, a city nationally recognized for its innovative public policies in education and social development. Growing up in this environment shaped my early interest in how institutional design can influence collective outcomes, particularly in contexts of inequality and violence prevention.

I hold a law degree and began my career working directly with interpersonal and institutional conflicts. Through this experience, I realized that legal frameworks alone are insufficient to address the behavioral and relational complexities underlying conflict. This led me to pursue an interdisciplinary path, integrating Social Psychology and Applied Statistics into my training. Today, my work is grounded in an evidence-based approach that combines legal reasoning, behavioral insights, and empirical methods to analyze public policy and institutional decision-making.

Between 2021 and 2025, I worked at the Municipal Department of Citizen Security in Sobral, where I contributed to the design and implementation of violence prevention policies. This experience positioned me at the core of institutional innovation processes, particularly those involving collaborative governance, community engagement, and conflict mediation. It also provided direct exposure to the challenges of translating policy design into effective implementation.

Currently, I serve as an advisor at the Public Defender’s Office, focusing on access to justice and dialogical approaches to conflict resolution. In parallel, I am pursuing a Master’s degree in Planning and Public Policy at the State University of Ceará (UECE).

My current research agenda, developed within my Master’s program, focuses on understanding how internal institutional conditions shape the effectiveness of public policy, particularly in the field of citizen security. More specifically, I examine institutional belonging as a key dimension of state capacity, conceptualized not as an individual attitude, but as a shared normative and cognitive framework that enables cooperation, trust, and coordinated action within public organizations.

Using a mixed-methods case study of the Municipal Department of Citizen Security in Sobral (2021–2024), I investigate how internal experiences of recognition, trust, and belonging among public servants influence decision-making processes, intersectoral collaboration, and the implementation of innovative violence prevention policies. While this research is grounded in the field of citizen security, it also reflects my broader interest in institutional trust, collaborative governance, and behavioral approaches to public policy, which I intend to further expand in future research.