Research & CV

Full-length curriculum vitae (pdf)

Academic Appointments

• University of California, Santa Barbara, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, 2020–present
• Stanford University, Postdoctoral Fellow, Immigration Policy Lab, 2018–2020

Education

• Yale University, Ph.D. with distinction, Political Science, 2018
• Harvard University, M.P.P. Public Policy, 2011
• Bates College, B.A. Political Science, 2006

Writing and Research

Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals

• “Circular Refugee Migration: Understanding Protracted Displacement Beyond a Refugee-Returnee Binary.” With Rosa Vidarte. Forthcoming at International Migration Review.
• “Reducing Attrition in Phone-based Panel Surveys.” 2025. With Ala Alrababah, Marine Casalis, Dominik Hangartner, Stefan Wehrli, and Jeremy Weinstein. Political Science Research and Methods.
• “Refugee Networks, Cooperation, and Resource Access.” 2024. American Political Science Review.
  • Online Appendix
  • Supplementary Tables
  • Replication Data
  • Audio Vignettes: Audio and Subtitles
• “The Dynamics of Refugee Return: Syrian Refugees and Their Migration Intentions.” 2023. With Ala Alrababah, Marine Casalis, Dominik Hangartner, and Jeremy Weinstein. British Journal of Political Science.
  • Online Appendix
  • Replication Data
• “Does Halting Refugee Resettlement Reduce Crime? Evidence from the US Refugee Ban.” 2021. With Vasil Yasenov. American Political Science Review.
  • Online Appendix
  • Replication Data
• “Does Aid Reduce Anti-Refugee Violence? Evidence from Syrian Refugees in Lebanon.” 2020. With Christian Lehmann. American Political Science Review.
  • Online Appendix
  • Replication Data
• “Refugees, Mobilization, and Humanitarian Aid: Evidence from the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Lebanon.” 2019. With Christian Lehmann. Journal of Conflict Resolution.
  • Online Appendix
  • Replication Data

Working Papers

• “When Does the Public Care About Immigration? The Political Salience of Venezuelan Immigration in Colombia.” With Natalia Bueno and Daniel Rojas.
• “Are Cash Transfers Effective Humanitarian Aid in Refugee Crises?”
• “Emotional Responses Without Policy Attitude Shifts: Examining the Limits of Affective Influence in Politics.” With Natalia Bueno and Daniel Rojas.

Other Publications

• “From Displacement to Resilience: Aid, Economic Recovery, and Social Cohesion in Post-War Iraq.” 2025. IOM report. With Andrea Caflisch, Mohammad Fidakar, Stephen D. O’Connell, Mathilde Roze, and Julia Lynn Smith-Omomo.
• “Returning Home? Why Pushing Syrian Refugees To Return Is Unlikely To Be Effective.” 2023. IPL report. With Ala Alrababah, Marine Casalis, Dominik Hangartner, and Jeremy Weinstein.
• “Striking UC academic workers say they’re underpaid. The data says they’re right.” December 2022. San Francisco Chronicle, Opinion.
• “University of California PhD Pay is Among the Lowest in the U.S. After Accounting for Cost of Living.” 2022. Research note.
• “Back-and-Forth Movements of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon.” 2022. UNHCR report. With Rosa Vidarte.
• “Knowledge about COVID-19 among Syrian Refugees in Lebanon.” 2021. IPL report. With Ala Alrababah, Marine Casalis, Dominik Hangartner, and Jeremy Weinstein.
• “Syria and Some Host Governments Want Refugees to Go Home. What Do Refugees Think?“The Monkey Cage, The Washington Post. December 24, 2020. With Ala Alrababah and Marine Casalis.
• “Returning Home? Conditions in Syria, Not Lebanon, Drive the Return Intentions of Syrian Refugees.” IPA–IPL Policy brief. With Ala Alrababah, Marine Casalis, Dominik Hangartner, Jeremy Weinstein, and Nasser Yassin. September 2020.
• “Before the Field.” Safer Field Research in the Social Sciences: A Guide to Human and Digital Security in Hostile Environments. With Jannis Grimm, Kevin Koehler, Ellen Lust, Ilyas Saliba, Isabell Schierenbeck, Sylvain Lefebvre, and Francesco Strazzari. SAGE Publications. 2020.
• “The Ethical Challenges of Field Research in the Syrian Refugee Crisis.” APSA MENA Politics, Newsletter of the MENA Politics Section of APSA, Volume 2, Issue 1. With Lama Mourad. 2019.
• Syrians in the Middle East: The Lives and Livelihoods of Refugees and Their Hosts. The World Bank. With Nandini Krishnan, Tara Vishwanath, Monica Biradavolu, Kevin Carey, Matthew Groh, Meghan Lucas, Nethra Palaniswamy, Flavio Russo Riva, Dhiraj Sharma, Thomas Ginn and Jacob Goldston. Internal World Bank Report.
• “‘Giving More’ Through Direct Cash Aid.” Refugees Deeply. 2016.
• “Giving Better: Lessons from Cash Grants for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon.” AUB IFI Policy Brief. Also published in Arabic. 2015.
• “Impact Evaluation of the 2014-15 Winter Cash Assistance Programme for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon.” UNHCR. With Khalil El Asmar. 2015.
• “Impact Evaluation of a Cash-Transfer Programme for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon.” Field Exchange. With Christian Lehmann. 2014.
• “Emergency Economies: The Impact of Cash Assistance in Lebanon.” International Rescue Committee report. With Christian Lehmann. 2014.
• Book review of Noel Brehony’s Yemen Divided and Christopher Boucek and Marina Ottaway’s Yemen on the Brink. International Affairs. May 2012.
• “An American Dream: The Broken Iraqi Refugee Resettlement Program and How to Fix It.” Harvard Kennedy School Review. Spring 2010.