Claudia Rei is Senior Teaching Fellow at the University of Warwick. She earned a PhD in Economics at Boston University in 2008 and an MA in Economics at New York University in 2002. Before joining Warwick she has was at Vanderbilt University teaching in graduate and undergraduate economics programs.

She specializes in research and teaching in economic history. Her work has been published top economic history journals. Her early research focuses on the economic incentives behind the organization of merchant empires in sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which shaped the future development path of European countries involved in early international trade. More recently, she has focused on the health and human capital of Jewish refugees who escaped Europe to the United States after the start of World War II. Her current research relates to the emergence of a ruling class, particularly focusing on the determinants of the selection of politicians, in the context of the Portuguese constitutional monarchy.