About Dialectik

We are not a technology company. We are a research practice.

Dialectik was founded on the conviction that research about Latin America must be led by Latin Americans — and that rigorous climate science is incomplete without the communities whose lives are shaped by its findings.

Our founding partnership brings together two complementary disciplines: Dr. Jose Daniel Teodoro's work on social network analysis and the SNPI methodology, and Dr. Vitali Diaz's expertise in geospatial data science at TU Delft. From this pairing, a single proposition: that social and environmental vulnerability must be measured with equal rigor, and that the evidence must come from the region itself.

We are based in the Netherlands. Our research network extends across Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico. We produce rigorous, actionable intelligence to support sustainable and socially just business development between Latin America and Europe — research-backed advisory for institutional partners, funders, and coffee sector organizations that take climate resilience seriously.

The team

Two researchers, one transdisciplinary practice

Dr. Jose Daniel Teodoro

Founder · Lead Researcher · Social Network Performance Indicators (SNPI)

Dr. Teodoro is the founder of Dialectik and the creator of the Social Network Performance Indicators (SNPI) framework — a systematic approach to quantifying the quality of stakeholder collaboration in environmental governance. His work has been published in Environmental Science and Policy (Elsevier) in both 2024 and 2026, and has been applied to fieldwork in El Salvador, Brazil, and Canada.

Daniel's academic foundation is in transdisciplinary research — the integration of academic methods with local knowledge, participatory data gathering, and stakeholder encounters. He has mapped more than thirty-nine stakeholder organizations across five categories in the Salvadoran coffee sector alone, co-designing a research agenda for climate adaptation with farmers, government officials, NGOs, and export actors. At Dialectik, Daniel leads the social science methodology and the country-level case study design.

LinkedIn →ResearchGate →

Dr. Vitali DiazTU Delft

Co-founder · Geospatial Data Scientist

Dr. Diaz is Dialectik's environmental science counterpart — a Geospatial Data Scientist at TU Delft, Europe's premier technical university, and an expert in remote sensing, LiDAR observation, hydrological modeling, and drought and flood risk assessment. His work draws on satellite imagery, climate models, and large-scale environmental datasets to quantify physical vulnerability across landscapes.

Vitali's institutional position at TU Delft gives Dialectik access to established European research infrastructure and European funding channels. In the Dialectik partnership, he leads the environmental data pipeline — the satellite, LiDAR, and climate model components of the dual-stream methodology — and works jointly with Daniel to integrate those environmental findings with the social network layer.

LinkedIn →ResearchGate →

Bridget McGlynnQUT

Sustainability Scientist · PhD Candidate

Bridget is an interdisciplinary sustainability scientist focused on collaborative governance, water resources, and network analysis. Her research investigates how patterns of collaboration among decision-making actors reflect the spatial and logistical complexity of the environmental problems they address, drawing on social-ecological resilience thinking and a systems perspective.

She is a PhD candidate at Queensland University of Technology and a Centre for Global Studies Graduate Student fellow, and a co-author with Daniel Teodoro on the Social Network Performance Indicators (SNPI) framework. Bridget has been extensively involved in the WWF Canada – Brock Partnership for Freshwater Resilience, co-creating knowledge at the interface of research and practice.

LinkedIn →ResearchGate →

Rick VinkMetriek

Data Scientist

Rick is a data scientist with 8+ years of experience building end-to-end analytical and machine learning systems. His work spans recommender systems, time-series forecasting, statistical modeling, and applied NLP — translating messy, real-world data into evidence that supports decision-making.

At Dialectik he contributes to the data science layer of the dual-stream methodology, helping turn social network and environmental datasets into reproducible, auditable analyses. He holds an MSc in Applied Physics from TU Delft and is the founder of AI-Codex.

LinkedIn →

What we stand for

Three commitments

Latin American leadership

We insist that research about Latin America must be led by Latin Americans. Our team, our networks, and our partnerships are rooted in the region. Regional researchers investing in their region's future.

Methodological rigor

Our work is grounded in peer-reviewed science. We publish, we submit to scrutiny, and we build on what survives review. No unsupported claims. No promises we cannot deliver.

Social-ecological integration

We reject the separation of environmental data from social context. Climate adaptation without community engagement is incomplete. Social and environmental dimensions deserve equal rigor.

Institutional context

Where we sit in the landscape

TU DelftInstitutional affiliationEnvironmental Science & PolicyPeer-reviewed publications · ElsevierNetherlandsRegistered base of operationsLAC Region5 country focus · research network

Interested in collaborating?

We welcome conversations with institutional partners, coffee sector organizations, and fellow researchers working on climate adaptation in Latin America.

Schedule a conversation→