Lucas Thevenard

Lucas Thevenard is a PhD candidate at FGV Rio Law (Brazil) and a visiting researcher at the GW Regulatory Studies Center. He is also a permanent researcher at FGV’s Regulation in Numbers project, where he leads empirical studies on regulatory impact assessment, public participation, transparency, and the governance of Brazil’s regulatory agencies, with particular emphasis on the health, insurance, and telecommunications sectors. His Ph.D. research investigates how “ideas” — the substantive content of public comments — shape regulatory outcomes in Brazil’s independent agencies. Using large-scale natural language processing (NLP) methods, his work examines how agencies interpret and respond to different arguments, exploring the relationship between public participation, institutional learning, and regulatory quality.