Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is proud to announce the incoming fellows who will be joining us in the 2022-2023 academic year to develop their research, engage with faculty and tap into our diverse scholarly community.

The pre- and postdoctoral program will provide fellows the time to focus on research and data analysis as they work to finalize and publish their dissertation research while connecting with resident faculty and research staff at CDDRL.

Fellows will present their research during our weekly research seminar series and an array of scholarly events and conferences.

Meet the Fellows

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Ahmed Ezzeldin Mohamed

CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow, 2022-2023

Hometown: Alexandria, Egypt
Academic Institution: Columbia University
Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): PhD in Political Science, Summer 2022

Shortlist of Research Interests: Religion and politics, distributive politics, political accountability, authoritarianism, religious regulation 

Dissertation Title: Religious Cycles of Policy Responsiveness: How Religious Seasons Regulate Public Opinion and Government Responsiveness in the Muslim World

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/Postdoctoral program? I am very excited to work with a group of scholars with global expertise and interests that match my research agenda and speak to real challenges facing our world today. This is also an excellent opportunity to interact with other fellows and cooperate on future projects.

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at CDDRL? I hope to work on my book project that focuses on how religious institutions shape economic policy-making and the distributive politics of Muslim societies. The book highlights the critical role of informal institutions in the governance of less democratic contexts. I am also looking forward to working and publishing a set of articles that studies state regulation of religion and distributive politics.

Fun fact: I enjoy cooking, and I had a cooking gig in the past. Boxing is my favorite form of exercise.

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Brandon Miller-de la Cuesta

CDDRL/FSE Postdoctoral Fellow, 2022-23

Hometown: Huntington Beach, CA
Academic Institution: Princeton University
Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): PhD in Politics, August 2020

Shortlist of Research Interests: African political economy, climate change, causal inference, machine learning

Dissertation Title: Essays on Electoral and Inter-Ethnic Accountability in Sub-Saharan Africa

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/Postdoctoral program? CDDRL is making an interdisciplinary effort at tackling issues at the intersection of climate change and political economy. 

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at CDDRL? I hope to help establish CDDRL's research agenda on the political economy of climate change, especially research into how climate change is affecting democratic governance in the developing world.

Fun fact: I still get lost on campus. 

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Catlan Reardon

Einstein-Moos Postdoctoral Fellow, 2022-23

Hometown: Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Academic Institution: University of California, Berkeley
Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): PhD in Political Science, expected August 2022

Shortlist of Research Interests: Local authority, violence, local governance, climate volatility, development, sub-Saharan Africa

Dissertation Title: The Ties that Bind or Break: Local Leaders, Dispute Arbitration, & Violence in Nigeria

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/Postdoctoral program? I was drawn to the exciting and diverse community of scholars at the center, all of whom are working on substantively important questions related to democratization, political development, and violence. I'm excited to engage with and draw from the experience and expertise of these researchers to hopefully improve my own research on local leaders and endemic violence in sub-Saharan Africa.

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at CDDRL? I plan to turn my dissertation into a book manuscript ready for submission. I also will submit and publish several working papers related to my dissertation revolving around local governance and small-scale violence. I also hope to meet and engage with as many CDDRL scholars as I can!

Fun fact: I adopted a cat (Ziggy) while I was working in rural Uganda 10 years ago. He's traveled around the world with me and most recently was stuck in Jos, Nigeria for a year during the pandemic. We have now reunited.

Eddie Yang

CDDRL/HAI Predoctoral Fellow, 2022-2023

Academic Institution: University of California, San Diego
Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): PhD in Political Science, expected 2023

Shortlist of Research Interests: Artificial intelligence, authoritarian politics, technology, algorithmic fairness

Dissertation Title: Repressive Institutions and the Politics of Artificial Intelligence

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/Postdoctoral program? The community of exceptional scholars whose work is very relevant to my own research and CDDRL's emphasis on policy-relevant research. 

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at CDDRL? I am really excited about the prospect of getting feedback on my dissertation and turning it into a book project and I hope I can gain new perspectives on my own research projects while at CDDRL.

Fun fact: I once met Brook Lopez in Disneyland!

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Feyaad Allie

CDDRL Predoctoral Fellow, 2022-2023

Hometown: Coral Springs, Florida
Academic Institution: Stanford University 
Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): PhD in Political Science, expected June 2023

Shortlist of Research Interests: Majority-minority relations, electoral politics, identity, politics of South Asia 

Dissertation Title: Power, Exclusion, and Identity: The Politics of the Muslim Disadvantage in India 

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/Postdoctoral program? The community of scholars at CDDRL who are working on some of the most consequential issues facing democracies today. 

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at CDDRL? I hope to complete my book-style dissertation project which studies how marginalized groups navigate politics and work on several article-length projects. 

Fun fact: I was a spin (stationary cycling) instructor during undergrad.

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Guzel Garifullina

CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow, 2022-2023

Hometown: Ufa, Russia
Academic Institution: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): PhD in Political Science, August 2021

Shortlist of Research Interests: Authoritarian governance, Russian politics, local politics, comparative political behavior, experimental political science

Dissertation Title: Selecting wise rulers? Institutional determinants of political leaders’ preferences and behavior

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/Postdoctoral program? I feel like CDDRL has a unique constellation of people who share my profile of research interests: authoritarianism, governance, and post-Soviet politics. In addition to that, I was drawn by the way the Center’s research programs bring together some of the fundamental questions in political science and a focus on policies and solutions.

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at CDDRL? I plan to publish my main dissertation paper on the way selection rules affect political ambition in non-democratic contexts, and hopefully one of my recent manuscripts on bureaucracy and governance.

Fun fact: I once bought a large and intricate paint-by-number painting for a calming meditative experience, and had to surrender several months later after having colored about three colors out of twenty and having lost absolutely all patience.

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Varun Karekurve-Ramachandra

Gerhard Casper Postdoctoral Fellow in Rule of Law, 2022-2023

Hometown: Mysore, India
Academic Institution: University of Rochester
Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): PhD Political Science, 2022 (Sept, tentative)

Shortlist of Research Interests: Judiciary, Women in Politics, and Bureaucracy with a focus on India

Dissertation Title: Essays on Indian Political Institutions 

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/Postdoctoral program? The diverse and highly accomplished scholars within CDDRL and the broader Stanford community.

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at CDDRL? I hope to build on my research agenda and make progress toward the completion of multiple research papers that are in various stages of development.

Fun fact: I like collecting comic books, understanding equity markets, test match cricket, and trivia (quizzing)