Graduate in Sociology and Political Science from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (1967), she holds a PhD in Sociology from the Université de Toulouse I (1974) and a HDR – Habilitation à diriger des Recherches – from the Université de Lyon 2 (2001). She is Emeritus Coordinator of URBANDATA and Professor at the University of Lille. She has experience in the area of Sociology, in particular in Urban Sociology, and works mainly in the following fields: favela, urban poverty, history of urban research in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro and housing policy in Brazil.