Mauricio Font was director of the Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies from 1999 to 2023. He is Professor Emeritus of sociology at the Graduate Center and Queens College, City University of New York.
His research examines problems of development and reform in Brazil, Cuba and Latin America as well as international cooperation in the Western Hemisphere with particular attention to reform processes in Latin America. Professor Font published The State and the Private Sector in Latin America (Palgrave) in June 2015 and ebooks on Cuba.
Font’s publications on Brazil include Coffee and Transformation in São Paulo, Brazil (Lexington Books, 2010), Transforming Brazil: A Reform Era in Perspective (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), Coffee, Contention, and Change (Basil Blackwell, 1990), and Brazilian Statism: Rise and Limits (forthcoming). He is also co-editor of The Brazilian State: Debate and Agenda (Lexington Books 2011), Reforming Brazil (Lexington Books/Bildner Western Hemisphere Series, 2004), and Café e Política: Ação da Elite Cafeeira na Política Paulista 1920-1930 (1988, Rev. 2010). Professor Font also edited and introduced Charting a New Course: The Politics of Globalization and Social Transformation (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), a volume with twenty-six essays by Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
His publications on Cuba include several co-edited volumes: Handbook of Contemporary Cuba: Economy, Politics, Civil Society, and Globalization (Paradigm Press, 2013), Handbook on Cuban History, Literature, and the Arts (Paradigm Press, 2014), Cuban Counterpoints: The Legacy of Fernando Ortiz (Lexington Books, 2005), La República Cubana y José Martí (1902-2002) (Lexington Books, 2005), Toward a New Cuba? (Lynne Rienner, 1997) and Integración económica y democratización: América Latina y Cuba (Instituto de Estudios Internacionales, Universidad de Chile, 1998). He has also organized several online volumes, including Reformando el modelo económico cubano (2014), Changing Cuba in a Changing World (2008), Cuba: In transition? Pathways to Renewal, Long-term Development and Global Reintegration (2006), Cuba Today: Continuity and Change since the ‘Periodo Especial’ (2004).
Professor Font has also published other essays on Latin America, the North American Free Trade Agreement and US-Latin America relations, and the comparative-historical study of development trajectories in settler societies. He is regularly interviewed by the US and inernational TV, radio and print news media.
He has taught at the University of Michigan, Rutgers University, the University of Brasilia, IUPERJ, and UNESP. He earned his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Michigan.