Assistant Professor in Politics & Political Methodology, King's College London
I am a Lecturer in Politics & Political Methodology (Assistant Professor with tenure) at King's College London. Previously, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Middle East Initiative. I completed my PhD in September 2020 in the Department of Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I am also an Associate Faculty Member at Nuffield College at the University of Oxford. My research focuses on political economy of development. My previous and ongoing projects concentrate on four areas: (1) the role of state capacity and accountability in service provision, with particular attention to spatial factors and ethno-religious heterogeneity; (2) spatial integration and climate resilience of refugee populations; (3) disaster resilience in rural and urban governance; and (4) the long-term influence of colonial interventions on development outcomes. I study these issues in Global South contexts through quasi-experimental statistical designs and novel data sources, often supplemented by fieldwork and archival research.
My papers have been published or are forthcoming in journals such as the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and Studies in Comparative International Development. My work has received several prizes, including the American Political Science Association's (APSA) Mancur Olson Best Dissertation Prize (Honorable Mention) for Best Dissertation in Political Economy, McGillivray Award for Best Paper in Political Economy (Honorable Mention), Weber Best Conference Paper Award for Best Paper in Religion and Politics, Best Comparative Policy Paper Award, Best Paper Award in MENA Politics, and the Midwest Political Science Association’s Pi Sigma Alpha Award for Best Paper, Kenneth Meier Award for Best Paper in Public Administration or Public Policy, and Best Paper by an Emerging Scholar Award. My research has been supported by the Harvard Data Science Initiative, Program on Governance and Local Development, and MIT Center for International Studies.
In addition to my research, I am deeply interested in diversifying the representation of underrepresented regions, particularly Global South, in political economy research, as well as enhancing the inclusion of scholars from underrepresented backgrounds in our discipline. I also serve as a member of APSA's Political Economy Section Committee and Committee on the Status of First-Generation Higher Education Scholars in the Profession. I am a Junior Fellow at the Association for Analytic Learning about Islam and Muslim Societies (AALIMS). I serve on the organizing committee of the Politics of the Global South (POGS) working group.
You can find a discussion about my research in this podcast and this news article. When I’m not working, I enjoy rediscovering the world with my daughter, and if time allows, watching timeless movies, driving, horse riding, reading about Sufism, and spending quiet times in London's beautiful gardens and parks.