Estela has research experience in economics, with emphasis on social welfare and health economics, having worked for the Human Development Research Group and the joint programme of the Brazilian Ministry of Health.  Her PhD focused on developing methods for measuring unfair inequalities in the Brazilian National Health System. She has worked at UCL as a health economist for NIHR CLAHRC North Thames and she was involved on a broad range of policy evaluation projects, including the evaluation of the implementation of Identification and Referral to Improve Safety (IRIS), a domestic violence training and support programme for primary care; and the evaluation of screening for HIV in primary care. She is also involved in an international collaboration between UK, Brazil, Nepal and Sri Lanka, carrying out the economic component of the evaluation of local healthcare responses to domestic violence and abuse. She is currently working as a health economist in the Clinical Trials Unit at the University of Bristol.