Verónica Hurtado

Verónica was recently awarded a Ph.D. in Political Science at UBC. Her research focuses on political economy of development and political behavior, with a regional specialization in Latin America. She studies the formation and evolution of populist mobilizations in two Andean countries: Peru and Bolivia. Using network analysis and GIS techniques, she analyzes how populism can emerge from bottom-up processes in the developing world.

Isabel Chew

Isabel was recently awarded a Ph.D. in Political Science at UBC. She studies identity politics, elections and redistribution, with a regional focus on Southeast Asia. Her research uses survey experiments, observational data, and ethnography to understand how identity politics affect political behavior in newly emergent democracies, with a focus on Myanmar and Singapore.

Daniel Rojas Lozano

Daniel is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at UBC. He studies the political economy of income inequality and preferences for redistribution. Specifically, he researches how economic elites respond to redistributive policies in Latin America. Daniel has been working with Margaret Peters and me on studying Colombians’ attitudes towards Venezuelan migrants and how those migrants react, using survey experiments and behavioral lab games.

Saleh Ismail

Saleh is a recent MA graduate in Political Science at UBC. He studies the impact of social media on politics, with a focus on the Global South. He seeks to understand the relationship between social media, misinformation, democratization, and political violence in African democracies. He is currently continuing his studies at Harvard Law School with the goal of moving into policy work in the future.

Lisa Akinyi May

Lisa is a recent MA graduate in Political Science at UBC. She researches the relevance and effectiveness of western policies in influencing migration patterns. She examines migration decisions by African migrants, specifically their timing and choice of routes. Prior to joining the program, Lisa worked as a journalist in Kenya and Belgium. Lisa has been conducting research assistance for my projects on migration in East Africa. She is currently the Associate Director for the Canadian Centre For Policy Alternatives in British Columbia (CCPA-BC).

Isabella Preite

Isabella is a recent Political Science honours student at UBC. Her research interests include media analysis, political discourse, and social movements. As an RA, she has been contributing to my Uganda-based projects by researching refugee settlements there, compiling thousands of newspaper articles about migrants, and coding parliamentary speeches for sentiment and context. She is an analyst at Avalanche Insights. She plans to go to graduate school to research the role of algorithms in relation to digital publics.

Ia Mantecon Garcia

Ia is a recent Economics graduate from UBC. She is interested in development economics and public policy, with a particular focus in Latin America. As an RA, she has been contributing to my Uganda-based project by coding speeches from the Ugandan parliament for sentiment and context and filtering newspaper articles from online databases. She has also worked for the UBC Centre for Migration Studies. She plans go to graduate school to study international development.