Brenda Samaniego de la Parra is assistant professor of development economics in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. She is a core faculty affiliate of the Keough School's Pulte Institute for Global Development.

Samaniego de la Parra also serves as an external consultant for the World Bank and the International Labour Organization. Her research analyzes different work arrangements between workers and firms with a special focus on informality, how they respond to shocks and their implications for wages and employment dynamics. Her work has provided novel estimates on the share of informal employment within formal firms and the impact of policies aimed at increasing formal work. A complementary strand of her work studies the root of differences in firms’ performance and barriers to growth in developing countries.

Prior to joining the Keough School, Samaniego de la Parra was an assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and an associate at Cornerstone Research. She also served as special projects deputy director for the National Banking and Securities Commission in Mexico. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.