Magda von der Heydt-Coca, Ph.D. was Assistant Research Scholar at the University of Johns Hopkins University, Department of Sociology. Born in Bolivia, she studied in the University of Cordoba, Argentina with a Bachelor degree in Social Sciences and in the Phillips University of Marburg in Germany where she received her Ph.D. She taught at University of Zurich, Department of Social Anthropology (1984-1999) and moved to the US. She taught in the Elliot School of International Affairs, The George Washington University. Department of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University (2000-2019). She is fluent in Spanish, German and English.

The focus of her research is political economy and developmental processes in Latin America, especially the link between Latin American economies and the world economy. Publications: about the Bolivian populist revolution of 1952 (in German: Die Bolivianishe Revolution, 1982), Latin American Development from Populism to Neopopulism. A Multidisciplinary Perspective, Rowman and Littlefield, 2022 and articles in peer-reviewed international journals about Andean silver and the rise of the Western World, the incorporation of the Andean world into the emerging world-economy in the colonial period, the ethnic dynamic of social movements in Bolivia, and the neoliberal agenda in Bolivia.