Ruth Vilaça Correia Leite Cardoso was a Brazilian anthropologist and a former member of the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences at the University of São Paulo. She was the wife of 34th President of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and First Lady of her country between January 1, 1995 to December 31, 2002. She too was a Ph.D in anthropology from the University of São Paulo.
As professor and researcher Cardoso taught at the Latin American College of Social Sciences, University of Chile, Maison des Sciences de L'Homme, University of California, Berkeley, and Columbia University. She was an associate member of the Center for Latin American Studies of the University of Cambridge. With her husband, the sociologist and former president of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, she founded and later directed the research institute Cebrap, which continues to be a leading site of social science research in Brazil.
Dr. Cardoso’s academic reputation rests primarily on a series of highly influential articles and book chapters on popular movements and political participation that she published in the 1980s and 1990s. Under Dr.