Daira Arana Aguilar

Dr. Daira Arana Aguilar is an Associate Researcher at the Institute of Social Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in the area of Social Actors and Processes. She holds a PhD in Public Policy from the School of Government and Public Transformation at Tecnológico de Monterrey, an MA in International Affairs from Anáhuac University Mexico, and a BA in International Relations from UNAM. She is a graduate of the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defence Studies and a Fellow at the USMEX Center at University of California San Diego (2024–2025).

Her research focuses on the participation of the armed forces in public life in Latin America, human rights applicable to the use of force and International Humanitarian Law, as well as the application of gender perspectives and feminist approaches in the fields of security and defence.

She has worked at the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Executive Secretariat of Mexico’s National Public Security System, the civil society organisation Causa en Común, and the Mexico City Secretariat of Citizen Security. She has also served as a consultant for Amnesty International, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Equis Justice for Women, and other institutions, focusing her work on citizen security, the use of force, the involvement of the armed forces in public security and national security tasks, standards for the protection of individuals, and the inclusion of a gender perspective within the armed and security forces.

She is a lecturer at Anáhuac University and at the Ibero-American University, and an adjunct professor at Tecnológico de Monterrey. She also directs Global Though, a think tank on international affairs.