Welcome!

Melissa (Mel) Pavlik is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Yale University researching the political economy and geography of repression and resistance, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Her interests include the micro-dynamics of political violence, the politics of informality, and mapping patterns of coercion and control. She also works on issues of causal inference and measurement, particularly in the production of conflict datasets and the use of geographic and satellite data. Her dissertation project focuses on how uneven state enforcement patterns `produce precarity’ among vulnerable populations, especially those displaced due to conflict and climate change. This project features insight from fieldwork in Lagos, Nigeria. Her academic work has been published in International Security.

Before grad school, Mel spent years mapping and analyzing political violence for NGOs, conflict observatories, and think tanks, including most recently at the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). Her analysis and data visualizations have been published across a wide variety of outlets, including The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage, World Politics Review, and Foreign Policy.

Contact at melissa[dot]pavlik[at]yale.edu