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Education & Affiliations
PhD in Political Science, Yale University | Exp. 2026
New Haven, CT, U.S.
- Fields: Comparative Politics, Quantiative Methodology, International Relations
- Committee: Elisabeth Wood, Kate Baldwin, Gerard Padro i Miquel, Sarah Bush
Visiting Researcher, University of Lagos | 2023
Lagos, Nigeria
- Affiliation: Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development (CHSD), June - August 2023
MA in War Studies, King's College London | 2018
London, U.K.
BA in Political Science (Minor in Statistics), University of Chicago | 2016
Chicago, IL, U.S.
Papers
Grasse, Don, Pavlik, Melissa Matfess, Hilary, and Travis B. Curtice. 2021. “Opportunistic Repression: Patterns of civilian targeting by the state in response to COVID-19.” International Security 46 (2): 130–165.
Grasse, Don and Melissa Pavlik. 2023. “Climate change, conflict, and property rights: Evidence from Nigeria.” Working paper.
Pavlik, Melissa and Ryan Pike. 2023. “Words of Warcraft: Experimental Evidence of States’ Social Media Frames during the Russia-Ukraine Invasion.” Working Paper.
Pavlik, Melissa and Johannes Wiedemann. 2022. “The Cost of Doing Business: Sender-state firms and supply-side sanctions politics.”** Working Paper.
Pavlik, Melissa. 2021. “Contours of Conflict: An investigation of network centrality and typologies of Taliban violence in Afghanistan.” Working Paper.
Ongoing Projects
Producing Precarity: The coercive logic of non-enforcement.Dissertation book project
On missing NGO data in International Relations. With Sarah Bush and Jennifer Hadden
[Selected] Analysis & General Audience
Pavlik, Melissa. “The Horror and the Humanity: Review of Samuel Moyn’s Humane.” Tocqueville 2021. September 9, 2021.
Pavlik, Melissa. “Anti-Interventionism Isn’t Enough For Left Foreign Policy.”Foreign Policy. August 28, 2021.
Selected publications for World Politics Review (WPR) | 2021 - 2022
- “To Understand Global Conflict, Start With a Map.” February 18, 2022.
- “U.S. Sanctions Might Be Easy, but They’re Not Cheap.” December 17, 2021.
- “The West’s Border Closure Reflex Comes With a Cost.” December 3, 2021.
- “Democracies Bear Some Blame for Democracy’s Global Erosion.” November 19, 2021.
Grasse, Don, Melissa Pavlik, Hilary Matfess, and Travis B. Curtice.“Autocratic governments are using coronavirus as a pretext to clamp down on opponents.” The Washington Post. July 31, 2020.
Selected publications for the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) | 2018 - 2020
- “A great and sudden change: the global political violence landscape before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.” August 4, 2020.
- “ACLED 2019: The year in review.” With Roudabeh Kishi and Sam Jones. March 2, 2020.
- “The World According to the Taliban.” December 19, 2019.
- “‘Terribly and Terrifyingly Normal’: Political Violence Targeting Women.” With Roudabeh Kishi and Hilary Matfess. May 29, 2019.
Employment
2021- | Editorial Assistant
American Political Science Review (APSR) Editorial Board Member Elisabeth Wood
2021- | (Quantitative) Research Assistant
Institute for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS) at Yale University
- Sarah Bush
- Alex Coppock
- P. Aronow
2017 - 2021 | Research Analyst
Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED)
2017 – 2018 | Research Analyst
Emerging African Paradigms Project at King’s College London
2016 - 2017 | Research Analyst & Head of Counterterrorism Team
Institute for the Study of War
Awards, grants, honors
2023 | **Pre-Dissertation Research Grant** from _MacMillan Center for International Area Studies_<br>
2022 | **Graduate Fellowship** from _Overbrook Fellowship Fund_<br>
2018 | **Postgraduate scholarship** from the _Sidney Perry Foundation_<br>
2018 | **Postgraduate scholarship** from _Chizel Education Foundation Trust Award_<br>
2018 | **Postgraduate scholarship** from _Veterans for Peace_<br>
2017 | **Research Fellowship** from _The Hertog Foundation_<br>
Skills
Programming R, Python (Intermediate), SQL (Beginner), HTML/CSS, Stata (Reluctant)
Visualization & Markup LaTeX, Markdown, Tableau
Geo-spatial QGIS, ArcGIS, Python spatial stack, Google Earth Engine
Talks
April 2023 | <b>Boston Area Working Group on African Political Economy (BWGAPE)</b><br>
March 2023 | <b>Midwestern Political Science Association (MPSA)</b><br>
October 2022 | <b>American Political Science Association (APSA)</b><br>
October 2021 | <b>Midwestern Political Science Association (MPSA)</b><br>
October 2021 | <b>American Political Science Association (APSA)</b> [DECLINED - COVID]<br>
October 2021 | <b>Yale University's Political Violence & Its Legacies (PVL)</b><br>
October 2021 | <b>Conflict Dynamics Workshop</b><br>
February 2019 | <b>Commonwealth: Countering the Diversion of Small Arms and Light Weaponry</b><br>
July 2019 | <b>Countering Improvised Explosive Devices (C-IED) Working Group</b><br>
October 2019 | <b>New Methods in Empirical Conflict Research</b><br>
Teaching
Fall 2023 | CONTESTING INJUSTICE
Professor Elisabeth Wood, Political Science Department, Yale University (Fall 2023)
Spring 2023 | GOVERNANCE & POLITICS IN AFRICA
Professor Kate Baldwin, Political Science Department, Yale University
Fall 2022 | INTRODUCTION TO PROBABILITY THEORY
Professor Robert Wooster, Statistics & Data Science Department, Yale University
Service
Editorial Assistant American Political Science Review (2021– )
Student coordinator Leitner Political Economy Workshop at Yale University (2022– )
Peer Reviewer International Interactions (2021), Journal of Experimental Political Science (2022)
Co-organizer Yale Political Science Department Skit (2022) [script available upon request [no]]