Introducing Our 2025-26 Pre- & Postdoctoral Fellows
Introducing Our 2025-26 Pre- & Postdoctoral Fellows
The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is pleased to welcome five pre- and postdoctoral fellows who will join us for the 2025-26 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 2025-2026 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, including the 2025 Global Development Postdoctoral Fellows Conference on Friday, September 19.
Meet the Fellows
Hometown: Budapest, Hungary
Academic Institution: Stanford University
Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): PhD Candidate in Political Science, expected June 2026
Research Interests: Authoritarian dominant-party regimes, democratic backsliding, and opposition parties.
Dissertation Title: A Crisis of Alternatives: Opposition Party Failures and Successes Against Authoritarian Dominant Parties
What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/ Postdoctoral program? I was drawn to CDDRL’s vibrant interdisciplinary community of scholars who are tackling challenges to democratic governance and development. I’m especially excited to engage with researchers examining authoritarian encroachment across diverse regional contexts.
What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at CDDRL? As a pre-doctoral fellow, I plan to complete my dissertation, which explains why opposition parties often struggle to challenge authoritarian dominant parties and outlines opposition-led strategies to reverse democratic decline. I’m also excited to explore opportunities for collaborations with other researchers and learn from CDDRL scholars who bridge academic work and policy engagement.
Fun fact: After I moved to Stanford, a few early hikes with American friends taught me that “hiking” means something very different in Hungary than it does here. Back home, a hike for me had always meant at least 10 miles and usually involved a few near-death experiences.
Hometown: Naberezhnye Chelny, Russia
Academic Institution: European University Institute
Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): PhD Candidate in Political and Social Sciences, expected September 2025
Research Interests: Political behavior, migration, autocratic control, and repression.
Dissertation Title: Challenging Autocracies from Abroad: Essays on Russian Political Emigration (2022–2024)
What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/ Postdoctoral program? First of all, the great academic opportunities, but also the fact that my coauthor previously held a similar position, which made CDDRL even more attractive to me.
What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at CDDRL? Publish and develop academic papers, integrate into Stanford’s academic community, and develop a book project.
Fun fact: Years before starting a career in political science, I defended a Candidate of Science degree (Russian analogy of PhD) in Social Philosophy.
Hometown: Kampala, Uganda
Academic Institution: Duke University (PhD)/Princeton University (Postdoctoral Fellow)
Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): PhD in Public Policy and Political Science, September 2024
Research Interests: State capacity, bureaucracies, foreign aid, and non-state actors in governance.
Dissertation Title: Aiding or Failing the Bureaucracy? Foreign Aid in Central Government Bureaucracies
What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/ Postdoctoral program? Questions of governance are key to getting poor countries like Uganda out of the cycle of poverty. CDDRL embodies the importance of addressing the principal question that lies at the heart of development: how do we govern well? I am excited to meet the scholars grappling with this question in different subfields and regions.
What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at CDDRL? I look forward to continuing to work on my book project and developing new projects, primarily focused on governance, such as taxation. This is also a pivotal time in international development and for my work. International aid is undergoing structural changes that are profoundly affecting governments and citizens in developing countries. My work, which provides insights into the mechanics of aid implementation, also highlights opportunities for reform, and not a return to the status quo.
Fun fact: I enjoy fantasy fiction and hope to write my own fictional novel one day.
Hometown: São José dos Campos, SP (by fluke — my base is Rio de Janeiro, RJ), Brazil
Academic Institution: Georgetown University
Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): PhD in Government, June 2025
Research Interests: Criminal and political violence, state and non-state armed actors, rule of law, governance, and state development.
Dissertation Title: The Warrior's Paradox: The Rise of Parapolice Groups in Brazil
What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/ Postdoctoral program? I was drawn by the structure and support the program offers scholars, and an unparalleled chance to work through the broader implications of my research in a vibrant community of interdisciplinary scholars who are leading the inquiry into questions of violence, governance, and state development.
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 on why police form armed criminal groups. I also want to advance a few related projects, and hopefully launch new collaborations with others in the CDDRL community.
Fun fact: I got Amazon packages delivered to the Amazon in 2002.
Hometown: Needham, Massachusetts
Academic Institution: University of California, Berkeley
Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): PhD candidate in Political Science, expected June 2025
Research Interests: Opposition politics, authoritarianism, democratization, democracy promotion, international relations, and Southeast Asia.
Dissertation Title: Challenging Autocrats Abroad: Opposition Parties on the International Stage
What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/ Postdoctoral program? I was drawn to CDDRL’s uniquely vibrant academic community focused on the pressing challenges facing democracy worldwide. At a time when the future of global democracy is increasingly uncertain, I look forward to engaging with and learning from other scholars who are tackling important questions and conducting research on multiple world regions.
What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at CDDRL? I plan to make progress on my book project, which examines the strategies opposition parties pursue on the international level to challenge authoritarian regimes. I also hope to pursue related projects on authoritarian elections, opposition lobbying, economic sanctions, and transnational political party networks.
Fun fact: I was studying abroad in Egypt and had to be evacuated when the 2011 revolution erupted.