Introducing Our 2023-24 Pre and Postdoctoral Fellows
The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is pleased to welcome six pre- and postdoctoral fellows who will be joining us for the 2023-24 academic year. These scholars will spend the academic year focusing on the Center's four program areas of democracy, development, evaluating the efficacy of democracy promotion, and rule of law.
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 2023-2024 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
Hometown: Caracas, Venezuela
Academic Institution: New York University
Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): PhD in Political Science, expected September 2023
Research Interests: Political parties with violent origins, post-conflict politics, peacebuilding and democracy, political integration and representation, and Latin America.
Dissertation Title: Essays on the Political Paths of Former Fighters
What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/ Postdoctoral program? CDDRL is an ideal intellectual environment for scholars like myself who are invested in producing innovative empirical research on pressing and policy-relevant questions of governance, conflict, and development. I look forward to the opportunity to learn from, and collaborate with, fellow postdoctoral scholars and the wide variety of experts associated with the Center studying conflict and democracy across contexts.
What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at CDDRL? I plan on advancing my book manuscript on the perseverance of political parties with violent origins and preparing it for publication. I also aim to advance my broader research agenda by investigating the fundamental tension democracies face when considering the inclusion (or exclusion) of groups with violent origins, the consequences of these decisions, and strategies to minimize violence and democratic erosion.
Fun fact: I was once almost a backup dancer for the late icon Celia Cruz.
Hometown: Huntington Beach, CA
Academic Institution: Princeton University
Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): PhD in Politics, August 2020
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 to tackle 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.
Hometown: Piliscsaba, Hungary
Academic Institution: Stanford University
Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): JSD (Doctor of the Science of Law), expected June 2024
Research Interests: Economic and reputational effects of the erosion of the rule of law, rule of law measure construction, and research design for rule of law impact studies.
Dissertation Title: How Much Does the Rule of Law Matter for the Economy? A Novel Approach to Rule of Law Impact Studies and Two Implementations on European Union Member States.
What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/Postdoctoral program? The vibrant intellectual community of fellows and scholars at CDDRL and the possibility of working alongside highly driven researchers as a source of inspiration, intellectual stimulation, and future collaborations drew me to the CDDRL fellowship program.
What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at CDDRL? Aided by invaluable insights from the CDDRL community, I would like to polish and submit two dissertation papers for publication.
Fun fact: I can’t tell jokes. Every time I try to tell one, I fail to make it funny.
Hometown: Monster, the Netherlands
Academic Institution: Stanford University
Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): Ph.D. Management Science and Engineering
Research Interests: Deliberative democracy, participatory budgeting, and online community organizing.
Dissertation Title: Design and Evaluation of Online Technologies for Societal Decision-Making
What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/ Postdoctoral program? I have been an interdisciplinary scholar for many years and look forward to engaging with the interface between engineering and democracy from the other side of campus!
What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at CDDRL? I hope to make further progress towards building a toolkit for decision-makers to engage residents meaningfully and effectively.
Fun fact: I have been active in the Wikimedia community for many years.
Hometown: Sichuan, China
Academic Institution: Stanford University
Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): PhD in Political Science, expected June 2024
Research Interests: Authoritarian politics, information technology, Chinese political economy, big data, and computational methods.
Dissertation Title: AI, Bureaucracy, and Information Manipulation: The Political Economy of Digitalizing Governmental Operations in China
What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/ Postdoctoral program? The Center is host to a group of leading scholars on the most pressing issues facing democracy and autocracy in today’s challenging world.
What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at CDDRL? I plan to complete my book-style dissertation project on how information technologies are integrated into bureaucratic operations in China and how that has led to unintended consequences on information manipulation, economic growth, official corruption, and central-local relations. I will also revise and prepare several working papers for publication.
Fun fact: In all three places where I have attended school since childhood, the regional or even global technology center is always located next door. This was the Mozi Bridge in Chengdu, Zhongguancun in Beijing, and, of course, Silicon Valley here in the Bay Area.
Hometown: Macomb, MI
Academic Institution: Stanford University
Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): PhD in History, expected 2024
Research Interests: Soviet Union, East Europe, Post-Soviet Successor States, Spatial History, Nationalism, Architecture
Dissertation Title: Expropriating Mezhyhirya: State Property Regimes from the Russian Empire to the Maidan
What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/ Postdoctoral program? I was attracted by the opportunity to explore interdisciplinary components of my research and the chance to get to meet other scholars interested in the history of democracy.
What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at CDDRL? I hope to gain new perspectives on my research as I revise my dissertation and explore potential next projects related to democracy and the rule of law.
Fun fact: I have ridden the entire length of the Trans-Siberian railway between Moscow and Vladivostok one and a half times (the second time, I transferred at Irkutsk and went to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia).
Hometown: Ann Arbor, Michigan
Academic Institution: University of Chicago
Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): Ph.D., Political Science, 2023 (expected)
Research Interests: Democracy, governance, and political violence.
Dissertation Title: Coercion and Capture in Democratic Politics
What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/ Postdoctoral program? I was drawn to CDDRL’s vibrant intellectual community and to the opportunities it offers to learn from scholars working on questions of democracy and political conflict in different settings around the world.
What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at CDDRL? During my time at the Center, I’m hoping to develop my book manuscript and a few related projects, and hopefully launch new collaborations with others in the CDDRL community.
Fun fact: I’ve never lived west of Chicago (and never experienced a winter without snow!)