Álvaro Hofflinger

Álvaro Hofflinger holds a master’s degree in Latin American Studies and a PhD in Public Policy from the University of Texas at Austin. He is a professor at the Universidad de la Frontera in Temuco, a public university in southern Chile.

Álvaro grew up in the small rural town of Selva Oscura in Chile's Araucanía Region. His research interests are linked to his background and how market-based reforms impact rural communities. Currently, he is studying the long-term effects of school closures on rural and Indigenous students in Chile, the country with the longest period of school closures due to the pandemic among Latin American and OECD countries. He is also conducting research on the connections between social vulnerability, the forestry industry, and wildfires in southern Chile.

His research has been published in Sociology of Education, Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, Energy Policy, Human Ecology, Geographical Review, Local Environment, among others.