Ana Paula Alves Fernandes

Ana Paula Alves Fernandes is a Brazilian academic and cultural expert, currently a post-doctoral professor at the Graduate Program in Social Sciences at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (Uerj). A first-time judge for the Carnival samba parade, she was selected by the Independent League of Samba Schools (Liesa) due to her extensive background in Brazilian popular culture, particularly samba. Ana Paula has a Ph.D. in Roman Studies and Social Sciences from Université Paris-Ouest and has worked on numerous cultural projects both in Brazil and abroad. Her recent newsworthy moment came when she forgot to assign scores for three out of four samba schools during the Carnival parade, leading to a unique scoring situation where all schools received the highest score in that category.