Harvard University's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) will open a new office in São Paulo, Brazil this summer, the center's director, John H. Coatsworth, announced Friday.

The new office, set to open July 1, will serve to strengthen ties between Harvard and Brazil—“the fastest growing economy in the Western hemisphere” and “a social laboratory in terms of ethnicity, social class, and gender relations,” Coatsworth said.