Zoila Ponce de León is an Assistant Professor in Public Policy at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. She holds a secondary appointment in the Political Science Department and an affiliation with the Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS). Previously, she was an assistant professor at W&L University. She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in political science from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and B.A. from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. She grew up in Trujillo, Peru.

Her work has been published in the Journal of Latin American Studies, Journal of Experimental Political Science, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, and Revista de Ciencia Política, among others. Her book, Political Parties and Policy Reform: Expansion of Healthcare in Latin America (under review at Cambridge University Press), explores the politics of policymaking across new democracies. Through an in-depth comparison of the healthcare reforms in Chile, Mexico, and Peru that began in the 2000s, she analyzes the policymaking process from agenda-setting and debate to implementation. This study is based on original data she gathered during 12 months of field research, including over 150 in-depth interviews with political elites, technocrats, and leaders of interest groups. 

She studies comparative social policy, focusing on how governments and societies respond to healthcare and migration challenges. Her research has been funded by the Centennial Center at the American Political Science Association (APSA), the Social and Economic Research Consortium (CIES), W&L (Lenfest Grants), and UNC-Chapel Hill (Mellon Dissertation and Burbank Research Fellowships, Uhlman Summer Research Awards, and Tinker Foundation Field Research Grant). Her article Healthcare Reform out of Nowhere? Policy Reform and the Lack of Programmatic Commitment in Peru was awarded the Journal of Latin American Studies Best Article Prize. She has also received the John Patrick Hagan Award for Outstanding Teaching at UNC-Chapel Hill. She has been interviewed by The Dialogue, Aljazeera, Brasil de Fato, and Global Finance, and contributed to The Washington Post, The Conversation, and the European Politics and Policy LSE Blog.

Courses Taught

• PIA 0101 How Public Policy Works
• PIA 3121 Policy Theory

Education & Training 

• Ph.D. in Political Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• M.A. in Political Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• B.A. in Political Science, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú