A doctoral student in history, Travis Knoll was the 2017-2018 project manager of the Cost of Opportunity? Higher Education in the Baixada Fluminense team, which investigated social mobility and access to higher education in Brazil. His research examines links between racial justice policy and religious civil society organizations in the formation of international progressive organizations. During 2018-2019 on a Mellon International Dissertation Research Fellowship (Social Science Research Council), he researched the trajectory of Brazilian Liberation Theology since 1976 and its embrace of the Brazilian black movement, specifically through efforts to promote ethno-racial affirmative action policies in Brazilian higher education. With funding from the IDRF he produced The Book Revolution: PVNCs and the struggle for affirmative action in the Baixada, a documentary outlining these efforts.