Beatriz Magaloni is Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University. She is also an affiliated faculty at the Stanford Center on Global Poverty and Development. Her research interests fall into four themes: the study of authoritarian regimes; electoral and distributive politics; “traditional” forms of governance and non-state provision of public goods; and violence, public security and human rights. Much of her research has focused on Latin America.

She is the founding director of the Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab. The Povgov Lab engages researchers and students — undergraduates, M.A. and Ph.D. candidates — from the fields of political science, education, economics, international policy studies, and engineering with the goal of finding solutions to problems of lawlessness and violence.

She is the author of Voting for Autocracy (2006, Cambridge University Press –winner of the Leon D. Epstein Outstanding Book Award for the best book written in the previous two years on parties and elections and the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association’s Comparative Democratization Section). She is also the author of The Political Logic of Poverty Relief: Electoral Strategies and Social Policy in Mexico (2016, Cambridge University Press, co-authored with Alberto Diaz-Cayeros and Federico Estévez).

Her research has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Conflict Resolution, World Development, Comparative Political Studies, Annual Review of Political Science, Latin American Research Review, International Journal of Educational Development, Latin American Politics and Society, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Journal of Theoretical Politics, and Política y Gobierno.

Beatriz Magaloni received her Ph.D. in political science from Duke University and obtained her Law degree from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM).

Kim Juárez holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Copenhagen and a MA in Latin American Studies, Political Economy Track from Stanford University. He is responsible for the coordination and execution of PovGov's research agenda. Prior to joining PovGov, Kim worked in the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Danish Parliament, and Transparency International. 

Alberto Díaz-Cayeros is Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and Rule of Law (CDDRL) and Director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Stanford University. His research interests include federalism, poverty relief, indigenous governance, the political economy of health, violence, and citizen security in Mexico and Latin America. He is the author of Federalism, Fiscal Authority and Centralization in Latin America (Cambridge, reedited 2016) and coauthor with Federico Estévez and Beatriz Magaloni of The Political Logic of Poverty Relief (Cambridge, 2016), as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters. He is currently working on a project concerning the developmental legacies of colonial rule and governance in indigenous communities in Mexico. In addition, he is the co-PI (with Beatriz Magaloni) of the project Citizen Trust and Evidence-Based Police Accountability and Professionalization in Mexico.

Andrés Uribe is an incoming Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a scholar of democracy, political violence, and the state in the Americas. His primary research agenda seeks to understand the causes of violence in democracies and its consequences for democratic institutions, policy outcomes, and human security. Other projects explore processes of competitive statebuilding during civil war, governance by non-state actors, and the political strategies of anti-democratic politicians.

Carlos is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy of the University of California – Berkeley. His research leverages applied data science methods to study the political economy of development in Latin America and in sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, his research focuses on crime, human capital, migration, and policing under weak institutions. Carlos earned his doctorate in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, in August 2021.

Edgar Franco-Vivanco is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan. His work explores the diverse ways in which indigenous populations have resisted external actors since colonial times, as well as the long-term legacies of colonialism in Latin America. In his research, he also investigates how contemporary criminal and police violence impact communities, particularly in Brazil and Mexico. His research has been recognized with prestigious awards, including the 2021 Heinz Eulau Award for the best paper published in the American Political Science Review and the 2022 Mary Parker Follett Award for the best paper published in Politics and History. Prof. Franco-Vivanco is also the co-founder of the Historical Institutions Lab at the University of Michigan. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University.

Miriam has studied political corruption in countries around the world, and is now writing a book on how political representation changes with economic development. She has regional expertise in Europe and South Asia, and has also conducted field research in Africa and North America. She uses statistical, experimental, and case study research methods. Her recent books include The Puzzle of Clientelism: Political Discretion and Elections Around the World (with Eugenia Nazrullaeva) and Corruption: What Everyone Wants to Know (with economist Ray Fisman). 

 Sarah is an incoming Assistant Professor in Cornell University’s Department of Government. She holds a PhD Political Science from Stanford University.  She is interested in how politically marginalized groups in Latin America and South Asia interact with the state. Currently, her work focuses on the impacts of traditional governance, and improving women’s civic engagement. She received a B.A. (with honors) in Political Science from Columbia University. 

Chantal Flores is a Mexico-based freelance journalist who investigates the impact of enforced disappearances in Latin America and the Balkans. She also covers gender-based violence, human rights, and immigration. Her work has been published by Al Jazeera, the L.A. Times, The New York Times, The Verge, MIT Tech Review, Yes! Magazine, Rest of World, Vice, and more. In 2024, she published her book “Huecos: Retazos de la vida ante la desaparición forzada” (Dharma Books).
 

Olivia Tom (she/her) is a fundraiser and social worker based in San Francisco. Olivia has extensive experience in both macro-level nonprofit development and micro-level community support and advocacy. Driven by a commitment to supporting children and families impacted by the child welfare system, Olivia has held roles at Foster America, specializing in development, and at Compass Family Services and the East Bay Community Law Center, as a clinical therapist and case manager. She holds a Master of Social Welfare from UC Berkeley and a Bachelor Degree in Government from Smith College.

María Ignacia Curiel is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. She is an empirical scholar using experimental, observational, and qualitative data to study violent conflict and elections, peacebuilding, and representation. Her recent work analyzes political parties with rebel origins and the conditions that shape their commitment to electoral competition. This work draws both from an in-depth empirical study of Comunes, a Colombian political party formed by the former FARC guerrilla, and from the study of broad patterns in rebel party behaviors across contexts. She received her PhD in Political Science from the Department of Politics at New York University. She has previously conducted research for the United Nations University Center for Policy Research on ex-combatant reintegration into civilian life, the Inter-American Development Bank on the evolution of Venezuela’s energy infrastructure, and a Caracas-based organization on state-sponsored killings and police militarization. She was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and lived in New York from 2011-2023.

Javier is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University. He is also a member of the Stanford Civics Initiative and an affiliated faculty member of the Stanford Center for Latin American Studies and the Stanford Center for Poverty and Inequality. He has been a Lecturer and a Postdoctoral Associate in Economics at New York University Abu Dhabi and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Bordeaux

Gillian's work focuses on understanding how inequality and poverty shape the experiences of people involved with and working within critical state systems. Through her work, she engages and contributes to scholarship on law and criminology, work and organizations, and poverty governance. She holds a PhD from Princeton University in Sociology and Policy. 

Natán Skigin is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Starting in fall 2025, he will be an Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics in the Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia. He is a scholar of democracy, political violence, and migration in Latin America. His research combines fieldwork with causal inference to investigate the causes of large-scale political and criminal violence, and their consequences for migration, democracy, and the rule of law. He is particularly interested in how marginalized groups can mobilize citizens to hold politicians accountable for abusing the state’s coercive power.

Carolina is a Postdoctoral Fellow at PDRI-DevLab at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research explores the political economy of crime and its punishment, with a regional focus on Mexico and Latin America and an emphasis on political methodology. Additionally, she works on the epistemology of causal research, exploring what conclusions we can draw from diverse research designs. She received my Ph.D. in Politics from New York University in 2024. Before grad school, Carolina was the Director of Data Analysis at Data Cívica, an NGO specializing in human rights and technology in Mexico City.

Hector's current research focuses on the critical juncture of the 2024 Venezuelan elections, exploring the dynamics that led to this semi-competitive election, and identifying windows of opportunity for fostering a transition to democracy in Venezuela. As the Director of EstadoLab -a Caracas-based think tank-, he has co-authored influential pieces on state fragility and democracy in Venezuela, as well as on state fragility across South America. Throughout his career, Héctor has built extensive expertise in institutional capacity building, rule of law strengthening, and natural resource governance.

Ben is the Research Program Manager for the Guestworker Migration Initiative. His main interests lie at the intersection of migration, development, and humanitarian work. Before joining the King Center, Ben worked on a portfolio of migration-focused projects at the Center for Effective Global Action at UC Berkeley and conflict and violence prevention research at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. He received his BA in political economy from UC Berkeley and his MA in humanitarian studies from Uppsala University in Sweden.

Madison Dalton is a Political Science Ph.D. student at Stanford University. She is interested in identifying strategies for reducing violence perpetrated against politically and socially marginalized individuals. Currently, her work focuses on preventative interventions addressing commercial sexual exploitation and violence against women and children. Prior to Stanford, she worked as a research associate for Mathematica Policy Research and served as a research fellow for the anti-trafficking nonprofit Love Justice International. She holds a B.S. (with honors) in Quantitative Science and Creative Writing from Emory University.

Emily Russell is a PhD student in Political Science studying comparative politics, international relations, and historical methods. She is a Knight-Hennessy scholar and an NSF fellow. Broadly, she is interested in political violence, including repression and militarization in zones of occupation. She is also interested in groups who organize outside of the state apparatus, including anti-colonial movements and modern forms of indigenous sovereignty. Previously, Emily was a research assistant at the University of Michigan and at the Icelandic Human Rights Centre in Reykjavik, Iceland. As a Kathryn Davis Projects for Peace fellow, she co-founded Playwriting for Peace in Pristina, Kosovo, which used applied theatre techniques to prevent security force enlargement. She maintains an affiliation with the Trivedi Centre for Political Data at Ashoka University in India.

Hanna Folsz is a PhD student in Political Science at Stanford University. Her research interests are focused on the political economy of accountability, corruption, and democratic backsliding. She is interested in understanding the determinants of effective democratic accountability, the role of money in politics, and processes of democratic erosion in Latin America and Eastern Europe. Her work applies modern causal inference, text analysis, and geospatial techniques to innovative data sources. She holds a B.A. in Economics and Politics from Durham University and an MSc in Political Science and Political Economy from the London School of Economics. 
 

Esteban Salmón is a PhD candidate in anthropology at Stanford University studying the relationship between violence, justice, and law in Latin America. His dissertation examines why unlawful violence is sometimes considered just. It moves ethnographically across Mexico City’s urban peripheries, prosecutors’ offices, and courtrooms to explain why ordinary state violence against incriminated suspects enjoys widespread support even amongst those who suffer it the most. 

Ameze “Mez” Belo-Osagie is a Ph.D. student in Political Science studying comparative politics, American politics, and political theory. She is a Knight-Hennessy scholar and an EDGE fellow. Her research focuses on political violence; state capacity; and state-citizen interaction, particularly through the carceral and welfare systems. Currently,she is interested in understanding variations in state capacity, both at the subnational level and between different kinds of government institutions. She holds a B.A., cum laude, in Political Science and African studies from Yale and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Previously she has worked as a research assistant at a counterinsurgency-focused think tank, as a program assistant at a legal aid clinic focused on torture in Nigerian prisons, as a student-attorney representing criminal defendants in Boston courts, and as the Supreme Court Chair of the Harvard Law Review.
 

Miryea Sturdivant is a Political Science Ph.D. student studying comparative politics and American politics. Her research is broadly concerned with Black and Indigenous social movements, state violence, and racial identity; particularly how they interact to enforce racial hierarchies and repression. She holds a B.A. in Political Science and Social Theory & Practice from the University of Michigan. Prior to Stanford, she worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Social Research and as a production coordinator for ABC News working on election projection models.

Camila Blanes is a PhD student in Political Economics at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. Her research examines the political economy of media, with a particular focus on the role of traditional and social media in improving democratic governance. Her work aims to understand how media capture by government agencies translates into a lack of transparency and undermines the market for news. 

Natalie Chaudhuri is a doctoral student in the Department of Political Science at Stanford. She is interested in violence by armed forces and environmental displacement in Central America. Natalie holds a B.S.F.S. in Regional and Comparative Studies and an M.A. in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University. She has interned with governmental and nonprofit organizations in Washington, D.C. and Santiago, Chile. 

Chris Dann is a PhD student in Political Science. His core research agenda studies the political economy of large-scale infrastructure investments and what are the implications of service delivery for building the social contract. He holds a BSc in Government from the London School of Economics (LSE) and an MSc in Politics Research from Oxford University. Before Stanford, he worked as a pre-doctoral fellow at LSE for Professor Sir Tim Besley. He has also consulted for the World Bank. 

Paloma, a native of Colima, Mexico, embarked on her professional journey as a General Practitioner from Universidad de Colima. For Paloma,  witnessing and experiencing gender disparities ignited her passion, prompting her to pursue an AA in Women's Studies. An opportunity to become a Student Fellow at Stanford Digital Education in the summer of 2023, allowed her to merge her love for education and research. Paloma has been closely studying the challenges faced by students from underrepresented communities, determined to uncover solutions that foster their success. Her unique blend of medical expertise, gender advocacy, and educational research positions her as a trailblazer, dedicated to creating a more equitable and inclusive learning environment.

Melissa Severino de Oliveira is an undergraduate student  ('24) majoring in Political Science, minoring in Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and coterming in Latin American Studies. She is an international student from Brazil who is particularly passionate about development politics and aims to work with public policy towards gender equality. Melissa is also currently developing her senior thesis under the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.

Lola Amaya is a master's student in Latin American Studies at Stanford University. She is interested in identifying interventions aligned with goals of transitional justice for victims of state sanctioned violence to interrupt legacies of violence. Her work focuses on sharing historical narratives of the state of El Salvador that hold states accountable for their actions. She holds a B.A. with honors in International Affairs and Spanish from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Bachelor of Political Science and Public Administration from the University of Colima and practical experience gained through working at the Secretaría de Gobernación (Secretariat for Governance) in Mexico, specialized in governance affairs monitoring.

Liza Goldberg is an M.A. candidate in Public Policy and B.S. candidate in Earth Systems. Goldberg has served as a NASA Earth Scientist for the last eight years, applying groundbreaking satellite-based analysis tools to inform deforestation policy across low- and middle-income nations. Goldberg is a 2024 Marshall Scholar, a National Geographic Explorer, the youngest female Google Developer Expert, a Sigma Squared Fellow, and a Slavin Foundation Fellow.

Isabella C. Montini is pursuing a Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley with a focus on Comparative Politics and Methods. Her research focuses on the political economy of development, exploring topics such as violence, distributive politics, and welfare provision by state and “non-state” actors. Her methodological interests include applied causal inference methods. Prior to pursuing her Ph.D., Isabella worked as a research fellow at the Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab at Stanford University in projects concerning criminal governance, militia expansion, and police violence in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Isabella holds a MA in Latin American Studies with a specialization in Political Economy from Stanford University and a BA in Political Science and Sociology from the Humboldt-University in Berlin.

Nicole Canali de Castro is originally from Paraná, Brazil. She is interested in state fragility, political violence, and the impact of non-state actors on peacebuilding and security governance. Nicole holds a BA degree in international relations and a specialization in geopolitics and defense. Her thesis on the impact of private military companies on the fragility indicators in Somalia received honors from the evaluation board. At the Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab at Stanford University, she worked as a Research Assistant in projects concerning militias in Rio de Janeiro, and Brazilian quilombos. Nicole is also an enthusiast of youth protagonism: in 2018, she represented Brazil on the Youth Ambassadors program, from the United States Government. Since 2019, she serves as a junior adviser on the Business Council of Paraná, contributing to the propagation of sustainability goals and mentoring other young people

Tara is an undergraduate student studying political science, with an emphasis on political economy and development. Born and raised in Monteverde, Costa Rica, Tara is broadly interested in the relationship between citizens and the state in Latin America. In particular, she is interested in understanding how this relationship can be leveraged to alleviate poverty and strengthen democracy in the region. She is currently writing her honors thesis at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Her research examines how low-income individuals in Santiago, Chile, conceptualize their citizenship and how, in turn, they participate in politics and engage with the state.

POVGOV carries out many of its evaluations In Mexico in collaboration with Redes Sociales Para El Desarrollo AC, a non-governmental, not-for-profit civil association formed under the laws of Mexico and doing business as “REDDES”. For almost 20 years, Vicente Vargas has worked—both as a public servant and as a graduate student in Queens' College, Cambridge—on violent social conflicts. His main focus has been to recover the role of the state as the most fundamental social instrument, particularly in poor and violence ridden areas. Vicente has been involved in the attention to diverse conflicts. He supervised the Ministry of Development's response to the Zapatista rebellion in Las Cañadas. He was in charge of the Peace Commissioner's Office in Chiapas. He led the Strategy to alleviate poverty in the 100 poorest municipalities (Estrategia 100x100). From 2008 to 2013, he was in charge of the Program of Governance and Development in the 10 most vulnerable regions of Mexico (167 municipalities). Since 2013, Vicente has been the CEO of Redes Sociales para el Desarrollo (Reddes) and the Observatorio de Desarrollo Regional y Promoción Social (ODP).