Our history from roots to today
From an idea across borders to a permanent platform rooted in historical research, education, and a commitment to human dignity. Terra Brasilis Institute grew from a vision of connecting Brasil and the United States beyond stereotypes. A space for shared learning, cultural exchange, and the preservation of diverse histories.
How it all began
Terra Brasilis Institute grew from a simple conviction: knowledge about Brasil should travel freely across borders, institutions, disciplines, and communities.
The Institute was founded by Brazilian historian and educator Pietra Diwan, Ph.D., after more than two decades of work in research, higher education, international education, and public engagement in Brasil and the United States.
Diwan’s academic and professional trajectory increasingly unfolded between countries, institutions, and communities. That experience revealed both the extraordinary interest in Brasil and a persistent gap: the need for an independent and lasting space capable of connecting Brazilian scholarship, history, culture, institutions, and people with broader audiences in the United States and beyond.
Terra Brasilis emerged from that need.
A Lifelong Expertise Shaped Our Core
Why Terra Brasilis?
The name Terra Brasilis evokes one of the earliest names used to identify Brasil on European maps. At the Institute, however, it points toward something larger and more complex than geography.
It represents a territory of knowledge, memory, movement, encounter, and exchange.
From its beginning, the Institute was conceived as a place where academic knowledge could move beyond universities; where researchers could engage broader publics; where students and communities could encounter new perspectives; and where institutions in Brasil and the United States could build sustained relationships rather than isolated collaborations.
Its purpose has therefore never been simply to explain Brasil. It is to create spaces in which Brasil can be studied, discussed, questioned, remembered, and connected to the world in all its complexity.
Rooted in South Florida, connected to the world
South Florida became the natural home of Terra Brasilis Institute.
Greater Miami occupies a distinctive position between the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the wider Atlantic world. It is also home to significant Brazilian and international communities, universities, cultural organizations, businesses, and institutions engaged in cross-border exchange.
From this location, Terra Brasilis seeks overtime to create connections that extend far beyond Florida, linking individuals and institutions throughout Brasil, the United States, and internationally.
Building the Institute
In 2026, Terra Brasilis Institute took institutional form in Florida as a nonprofit educational organization and received recognition as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.
Its early development established the foundations for three interconnected areas of work:
Public Education brings scholarship into public life through lectures, conversations, workshops, cultural initiatives, digital media, and accessible educational programs.
International Exchange and Mobilities connects people and institutions across borders through educational exchange, academic collaboration, professional networks, and programs examining the movement of people, knowledge, and cultures.
Research & Archives supports research, documentation, historical preservation, publications, and initiatives that expand access to sources and knowledge concerning Brasil and its global connections.
These areas are connected by a broader commitment to human dignity, intellectual independence, historical understanding, and the democratic circulation of knowledge.
An ongoing history
Terra Brasilis is a young institution built upon a much longer intellectual and educational journey.
Its history is therefore not only a story about its founding. It is a story about building connections: between Brasil and the United States, scholarship and local communities, memory and contemporary experience, people and institutions, and ideas that might otherwise remain separated by geography or disciplinary boundaries.
As the Institute develops its programs, partnerships, international exchanges, research initiatives, and public community, that history will continue to be written collectively.
Looking Ahead To What's Next
Expand Awareness
To make rigorous knowledge about Brasil more accessible by connecting academic research with public education, cultural programming, lectures, digital content, and community engagement.
Global Connections
To build relationships between people and institutions in Brasil and the United States through educational exchange, collaboration, and the circulation of ideas, knowledge, and experience.
Research & Memory
To support research, documentation, archives, and publications that preserve historical memory, encourage new scholarship, and deepen understanding of Brasil and its global connections.
- RESEARCH & ARCHIVE
Explore our archive
Documents, images and stories that preserve our shared memory.
- ON YOUTUBE
Watch our story unfold
Every recorded event, talk and gathering on our YouTube channel.
Keep Exploring About Us
Help write the next chapter
DONATE
Support the Institute
When you support Terra Brasilis, you become part of the work we are building. Your gift helps make that work possible.
COMMUNITY
Join the conversation
Connect with members, hear about events first and take part in our community.
Terra Brasilis Institute is a nonprofit educational and charitable organization organized and operated exclusively for purposes consistent with Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.