Dr. Perla Polanco Leal

Biography

Perla Polanco Leal is a Lecturer in Politics at the University of Manchester. She completed her PhD at the University of Sheffield in 2019, where her doctoral thesis focused on Mexican extractive industries and energy policy. Her research explores how resource nationalism perpetuates colonial dynamics and limits governments' ability to pursue ambitious climate change policies. Since joining Manchester in 2022, she has worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Sheffield. Polanco Leal is affiliated with the Re:Structure Lab, a collaboration involving Stanford University and Yale University, and has multi-disciplinary expertise on modern slavery and innovative business model policies. She has worked on an AHRC funded project investigating forced labor during the Covid-19 pandemic in the garment industry across Ethiopia, Honduras, Myanmar, and India, in collaboration with Workers’ Rights Consortium and Canadian media outlets. In her teaching, she covers modules at both undergraduate and master's levels in Global Political Economy and supervises various dissertations. Her expertise is related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals that aim to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all.

Research Interests