Raquel Varela is a social historian and researcher in global labor history. She is an assistant professor with habilitation at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities (FCSH) of Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Autonomous Section on Education and General Training). She is a historian and an integrated researcher at the FCSH hub of the IG on History, Territory, and Communities. She is the President of the Observatory for Living and Working Conditions and coordinator of Social Data/Nova Sustainability. She is a collaborative researcher with the Centre for Global Studies at Universidade Aberta (Open University). Her area of research pertains to social sciences and humanities, with an emphasis on the subjects of history of revolutions and the labour movement, history and global sociology of work, and a global perspective on education and work. She is the author of A People’s History of the Portuguese Revolution (Pluto) and Breve História da Europa (A Short People’s History of Europe From World War I to Today). She is the author of essays on subjects such as labour and everyday life, internationalism, education and emancipation, and living conditions under capitalism. With Robson Vilalba, Varela published the graphic novel Utopia. In 2024 she published a biographical novel, O Canto do Melro (The Blackbird’s Song), about the life of revolutionary priest José Martins Júnior.