Cover letter for visiting researcher (PhD) from the United States

Hello! I'm writting a cover letter to a professor in USA, asking to join her research group as visiting researcher.
Could ou help me?

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local public expenditure research

Dear Professor xxxxxxxxxx,

I am writing to inquire about the possibility of joining your research group as a visiting researcher, in xxxxxxx. I'm a Brazilian PhD student, developing a research about local public expenditure.

I have a bachelor degree in Management (2003-2008) and a Master in Public Management (2014-2015). Since 2011 I am a student at University of Săo Paulo (USP), where I finished a Master in Public Administration (2011-2013) and am currently writing my PhD thesis, which aims to evaluate the intersectoral impact of public investments. I address, more specifically, how local expenditure in education may have a short-term impact on public health.

I also work as a professor at xxxxxx, a Brazilian institute, where I was contemplated with the opportunity to spend maximum one year as visiting researcher abroad. I would like to challenge myself working in international environment and I believe that my experimental background and motivation would help me to have a valuable contribution. I have some experience abroad, so culture and language shall not be an issue.

While looking for possible Universities to make contact, my advisor (also named Claudia) mentioned that Ricardo Gomes was delighted with his experience at Bloomington, so we talked to him about my proposal and he thought you might be interested in developing some research together.

I have noticed your research interest in Latin America and local governments. Despite I don't have specific data on mayors, I think my database on local expenditure may be valuable for your research. So I would be grateful if you would give me the possibility to join your group, staring any time in winter 2017 or spring 2018 for a period from 3 to 12 months.

To provide more information about myself and my academic records I have attached my CV to this email. I am eagerly waiting for your kind reply and really appreciate your time and concern.

Best regards,

Luna Ferolla

Luna, in order to impress the professor and possibly, make him consider your acceptance as a visiting researcher to his program, you must create a connection between your current research or your research proposal and the current work that he is doing. It is not enough that a person who used to be a part of his program "thinks" he might be interested in your work. In fact, naming that student who was previously part of your program will not help your letter in any way because there was no discussion of a research connection between the current work of the professor and your work. In fact, if is a bad idea to tell him that you do not have evidence regarding mayors, specially if that data is important to his own research. Remember, if your own research will not help this professor to grow his own work, he will not be interested in coordinating his research with yours. Summarize your college degree, masters course, and the thesis wok that you did in both, provided that these tie in directly with your dissertation research. That is because the professor will be most interest in learning about the foundation for your research that might have an impact upon his own. Remember that as a visiting researcher, you need to prove that there will be an integral and important exchange of information between the two of you. There is no sense of that in this letter.