PhD and Master from the Graduate Programme in Sociology at the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences of the University of São Paulo (FFLCH-USP), with research funded by the São Paulo State Research Foundation (Fapesp), with a bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences from the same institution, Renan William dos Santos is a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Observatory on Climate Change (OIMC), and his current project, Transnational Networks of Faith and Smoke: Christian Actors and Climate Obstruction in Brazil, is funded by the Carlos Chagas Filho Foundation for Research Support of the State of Rio de Janeiro. (Faperj). He is also a member of the steering committee of the Religion and Ecology unit at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and is part of the research group on Right-Wing Religious Ecologies of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture (ISSRNC).

His research explores the intersections of environmental activism, religious identities, and climate obstruction, addressing topics like disinformation networks (both national and transnational), neutralization of environmental practices and policies, greenwashing, moralization of ecological discourses, divinization of nature, religious environmentalism, religious actors’ participation in the public sphere, secularization, and modernization theories. In 2024, his work Religious Orientations on Ecological Conduct, supervised by Reginaldo Prandi(FFLCH-USP), was awarded the 13th USP Outstanding Thesis Prize as the best thesis in the Human Sciences Major Field, as well as receiving an Honourable Mention in the CAPES Thesis Prize.