Elisa Frühauf Garcia is Professor of Latin American Colonial History at the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), where she has taught since 2009 and where she also earned her PhD in History. A specialist on the Indigenous peoples of Brazil, her doctoral dissertation examined Indigenous agency along the southern frontiers of the Iberian empires in South America during the eighteenth century. Awarded the Brazilian National Archives Prize in 2007, the dissertation was later published as As diversas formas de ser índio. Her current research focuses on the relationships between Native women and European men in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Adopting a long-term perspective, her scholarship explores the intersections of history, cultural heritage, colonial legacies, and disputes over the past.
At UFF and other institutions, Professor Garcia has taught courses on Indigenous history and gender relations while advising numerous master’s theses and doctoral dissertations, several of which have been highly recognized in the field and awarded distinctions in Brazil and abroad. She has undertaken postdoctoral research at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) and at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Madrid. A CNPq Research Productivity Fellow and Faperj Scientist of Our State, she has received grants and fellowships from institutions such as the Fundación Carolina, the Newberry Library, and the Max Planck Institute for Legal History. She has also served as a visiting professor at the State University of Feira de Santana (Bahia), with support from CAPES.
She is currently Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she is helping to establish a collaborative lab on women’s work linking UIUC, UFF, and other universities. Alongside colleagues, she was recently awarded a Bridge Seed Fund Grant to support this initiative.
Professor Garcia is also noted for her commitment to public engagement through the project Mulheres Indígenas na Wikipédia (Indigenous Women on Wikipedia), which promotes the inclusion of knowledge on Indigenous women in Portuguese and English language Wikipedia entries. In 2024, the project was officially recognized by UFF as a model of social technology.

Her most recent publications are:
Garcia, Elisa Fruhauf. “Indigenous Women in the Early Years of Brazilian Colonial Society: History and Uses of the Past”. In: Alliances and Partnerships in South America. Whitaker, James & Harris, Mark (eds.). Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2025.
Garcia, Elisa Fruhauf. “Challenging colonial knowledge: gender and sexuality of Indigenous women in sixteenth-century Brazil”. Women's History Review, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1080/09612025.2025.2535050