Mariana Contreras Leal supported the research group Political Struggles of the Global South as a student assistant from October 2022 to September 2023. From 2021 to 2023 she studied the Master Cultures of the Global South (MGS) at the University of Tübingen. Prior to this, she completed a Bachelor's degree in International Relations at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (TEC) in Mexico City. Parallel to her MA studies, Mariana worked as an intern at the Stay Foundation in Stuttgart in the Stay-Bee and Stay-Seed projects, which conduct research on social development in Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda. In addition to her work in the Global Struggles in the Global South team, Mariana was a research assistant at the RHET AI Center at the Institute for Media Studies at the University of Tübingen, where she studied the impact, perception and adoption of artificial intelligence in Latin America. Mariana currently works at the Consensus Group in Stuttgart. The company trains mediators to resolve conflicts through dialog.