Titular Professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (PUC-Rio) and director of The International Center for Research and Policy on Childhood (CIESPI) at PUC-Rio. She has been a visiting professor at Notre Dame University (US); the University of Edinburgh (UK), with systematic academic exchange in Latin America, particularly with the University of Guadalajara (Mexico), and has lectured at a number of universities internationally. She was been for seven years the president of Childwatch International, a network of university children’s research centers in over 40 countries.

Professor Rizzini has published extensively on children, families and their communities in Brazil and has conducted research in collaboration with colleagues in a number of countries. She focuses on various issues of Human Rights and Public Policy; rights violation, particularly children living in situations of vulnerability such as poverty, violence, urban slums, children and youth in institutions and living or working on the streets. She has also conducted studies on family support structures, children with mental and developmental disabilities, children in the juvenile justice system, and children and young people´s activism and their right to participation.