Alida C. Metcalf is a historian of Brazil and the Atlantic World with interests ranging from the history of Rio de Janeiro, to family life and the roles of intermediaries in colonial Brazil, to the mapping of the Atlantic World. She is the author of four books, the most recent is Mapping an Atlantic World, circa 1500, which reconstructs how the Atlantic was first mapped as a space for trade, colonization, and evangelism. Earlier books are Go-betweens and the Colonization of Brazil available in Portuguese as Os papeis dos intermediaries na colonização do Brasil, (Editora da Unicamp, 2019); The Return of Hans Staden: A Go-between in the Atlantic World, co-authored with Eve M. Duffy, and Family and Frontier in Colonial Brazil: Santana de Parnaíba, available in Portuguese as Familia e fronteira no brasil colonial: Santana de Parnaíba (Editora da Unesp, 2024). With Farès el-Dahdah she developed the digital humanities project imagineRio, which maps and illustrates the social and urban evolution of Rio de Janeiro from 1500 to the present. Her current research focuses on the history of water in Rio de Janeiro. She is the director o the Dual Degree PhD program bertween the history deparmtents at Rice and the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil.

During the 2025-26 academic year, Dr. Metcalf will be teaching FWIS 242, "Water and Cities," and HIST 250, "Mapping the World from Ptolemy to Google," both in the spring semester (2026).