I am a social science researcher focused on party systems, deliberation, nostalgia, and corruption during transitions from authoritarian rule, especially in Tunisia and the rest of North Africa. I am a research consultant at Stanford’s Deliberative Democracy Lab, where I am managing a project to use Deliberative Polling to understand Tunisians’ preferences for addressing problems of solid waste management.   

My book manuscript focuses on the question of why democratization in Tunisia failed to address the social and economic grievances that precipitated it. My work has been published by the Atlantic Council, Journal of Democracy, the MERIP Middle East Report Online, Nawaat, the Project on Middle East Democracy, and the Washington Post Monkey Cage. I have won grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, Yale MacMillan Center, Project on Middle East Political Science, and the Institute for Humane Studies. My collaborative work has also been supported by the National Science Foundation, Center for Effective Global Action, the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, and Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income Countries. 

I was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law in 2020-21 and also worked as a teaching fellow (2021-23) in Stanford’s program on civic, liberal, and global education (COLLEGE). I received my PhD in political science (with specialties in comparative politics, quantitative methods, and political economy) from Yale University in December 2020. I have a BA in international relations from Tufts University, an MS in applied economics from Johns Hopkins University, and an MA and MPhil in political science from Yale. I have spent more than three years living, working, and researching in Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia. My CV is available here.