Bárbara graduated in May 2018 with an MA in Human Rights Studies and was the recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship. Her studies focused on forced displacement and migration. Her thesis on Portugal’s role in the European Refugee Crisis was among the first in the North American academy tackling this research topic. During her time at Columbia University, she was also awarded the GSAS Fall Award for academic merit and served as teaching assistant to the Department of Political Science’s undergraduate class on the Introduction of Human Rights.