Fidelis Leite Magalhães

Fidelis is a first-year DPhil student studying under the supervision of Dr. Nicole Stremlau. Fidelis' research concerns the relationships between strategic communication, law, and constitution-making in nation-building. 

Fidelis has more than fifteen years of policy and government experience. Fidelis has held several senior minister roles, including as minister of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers of Timor-Leste and minister for Legal Reforms and Parliamentary Affairs. Fidelis also served as the chairperson of the United Nations Economic and Social Council for Asia Pacific-Forum on Sustainable Development (2018-2020).

Prior to assuming executive roles, Fidelis was a parliamentarian where he headed his party’s parliamentary group and chaired the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, defense, and security; he was chief of staff to the president of Timor-Leste and chaired the High-Level National Consensus Dialogue on Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation.  He was the 2017 recipient of the Order of Timor-Leste for public service.

Fidelis holds a master's degree in Public Administration from Harvard University, where he was a Harvard Kennedy School Dean's Fellow, a Master of Science in Political Economy of Late Development from LSE (joint Economic History and DESTIN) and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science (with distinction) from the University of Hawaii-Manoa. Fidelis has also completed MPhil courses in International Relations at the University of Lisbon. 

Fidelis was a recipient of numerous awards including the US-State Department Scholarship, Chevening Award, Calouste Gulbenkian fellowship, the European Union Visitor's Program for Young Leaders, and the Edmund J. Curly Scholarship fund.