Ernesto Amaral is currently working on a post-doctoral research at the Center of Development and Regional Planning at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (CEDEPLAR/UFMG) with Professor Eduardo Rios-Neto, funded by the Foundation to the Support of Research from the State of Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG).

He is working on a research that continues the work done at his Ph.D. dissertation, which deals with demographic transition and economic development at the local level in Brazil as reflected by census data. His dissertation research was funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Population Reference Bureau, through the Dissertation Fellowship in Population, Reproductive Health and Economic Development (2006-2007). He was also awarded a fellowship for Ph.D. scholars in foreign countries from the Brazilian Ministry of Education (CAPES-MEC) between 2002-2006. A version of this research is available at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) website.

From 2003 to 2004, he worked with Professor Joseph E. Potter, Professor Emily Skop, Paul Peters and Wilson Fusco on a research project about the influence of the social network on migration patterns in the mesoregion of São Paulo, utilizing the 2000 Brazilian Census. The final paper was well received and published in the journal "Urban Geography" in 2006.

In 2003 and 2005, he worked on a research about differentials of fertility rates between the lower and upper classes in Mexico and Brazil. This research was also a collaboration with Professor Joseph E. Potter. The final paper on this research will be published in 2007 in the journal “Notas de Población,” which is edited by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC-UN).

Another project in which he was involved dealt with methods and techniques to measure and categorize migrant movements in Brazil. The varying outcomes of this research were published in several publications including the PRC Working Paper Series (2006), the “Revista Brasileira de Estudos de População” (2004) and the “Revista Sociedade e Cultura” (2002).

From 2002 to 2003, he worked with Kristine Hopkins on a research focusing on high levels of cesarean birth rates in Brazil, using the 1998 Brazilian Household Sample (PNAD). Results of this research were presented at the 2005 meetings of the Population Association of America in Philadelphia, March 31 - April 02.