I am a Ford Family Assistant Professor of Political Science and Faculty Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. My research interests include African politics, comparative democratization, African political parties, political Islam in West Africa, Mali, and education and citizenship.
My current book manuscript, Schooling Citizens: Education and Empowered Citizenship in Mali, analyzes how different educational experiences, public/private and secular/Islamic, affect citizenship in Mali in the context of expanded access to schooling. I draw on unique data from a year of fieldwork including 1000 surveys, exit polls during the 2009 municipal elections, interviews with 200 university students, politicians' educational profiles, government schooling data, as well as interviews with Malian educators and government officials.
I received my MA and PhD from Cornell University and my BA in Political Science from the University of Chicago. Before graduate school, I worked for Winrock International on USAID's Africa Education Initiative Ambassadors Girls Scholarship Program in Central and Southern Africa. I have worked as a consultant for Freedom House, Winrock International, Care, and the World Bank.
My current book manuscript, Schooling Citizens: Education and Empowered Citizenship in Mali, analyzes how different educational experiences, public/private and secular/Islamic, affect citizenship in Mali in the context of expanded access to schooling. I draw on unique data from a year of fieldwork including 1000 surveys, exit polls during the 2009 municipal elections, interviews with 200 university students, politicians' educational profiles, government schooling data, as well as interviews with Malian educators and government officials.
I received my MA and PhD from Cornell University and my BA in Political Science from the University of Chicago. Before graduate school, I worked for Winrock International on USAID's Africa Education Initiative Ambassadors Girls Scholarship Program in Central and Southern Africa. I have worked as a consultant for Freedom House, Winrock International, Care, and the World Bank.
