Bárbara Ferreira Santos is an award-winning Brazilian journalist with more than 12 years of experience in international multimedia journalism. She has worked for major media outlets in Brazil, including the newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo, the financial magazine Exame, and the sports channel SporTV, among others. Her work in Brazil has garnered prestigious awards in education reporting, including the Prêmio Estácio de Jornalismo 2014 and the Prêmio Andifes de
Jornalismo 2014.

In 2018, she moved to Washington, DC, to work for the U.S. public broadcaster Voice of America’s Portuguese to Africa service, covering Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa and the African diaspora in the Americas. There, she implemented VOA’s first TV programs for Angola, Mozambique, and Cape Verde. She has also produced TV programming in Swahili and English.

Since March 2024, Bárbara has worked as a project coordinator at the Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute, where she has been involved in a series of projects related to U.S.-Brazil foreign relations, including coordinating a book on the bicentennial of Brazil-U.S. diplomatic relations. Bárbara holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Faculdade Cásper Líbero, one of the top journalism universities in Brazil. She has also completed a Graduate Certificate Program in Media and Global Communications at the University of California, Irvine, and an extension in journalism at the University of Navarra (Spain). Fluent in Portuguese, Spanish, and English, she is currently learning French and Arabic.

At Georgetown, she is a Master of Science in Foreign Service (MSFS) candidate concentrating in International Development. During the program, she aims to build expertise in critical development issues, including responses to humanitarian crises and the dynamics of economic growth.