I am a postdoctoral research fellow at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Defense Analysis Department. My research focuses on how governments and civil society organizations can combat violent extremism and extremist politics through preventative programming. Governments and civil society organizations have funded a wide variety of preventing/countering violent extremism (P/CVE) programs in recent years. However, these programs are rarely implemented in ways enabling their systematic evaluation, and it is generally unknown whether they actually work. I use field experiments in order to design and implement such programming in ways that inform policymakers about whether and how such programming can potentially be effective at preventing and/or reducing violent extremism and its antecedents.

My dissertation project was the design and evaluation of a USAID-sponsored preventing/countering violent extremism program in Bangladesh. The project was implemented as a randomized, placebo-controlled trial (RCT) in Dhaka and Rajshahi, and is the subject of my forthcoming book manuscript. I am implementing a similar study in internally displace person (IDP) camps in Kismayo, Somalia with colleagues. In addition to my research, I teach undergraduates enrolled in NYU Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Scholars Program, and have experience teaching US foreign policy, international relations, American politics, quantitative research methods, and critical thinking and writing.

I completed my PhD in Political Science at New York University’s Wilf Department of politics. I completed my MA in Security, Peace and Conflict at Duke University, where I was awarded a five year National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship for my research on violent extremism. I completed my BS/BA at Penn State University with interdisciplinary honors in Security & Risk Analysis and International Politics.

Contact me at pbv209@nyu.edu