Graduate Students

Graduate teaching is one of the most rewarding things I do, and it’s a privilege to work with so many great students. The Yale program emphasizes that students should explore a wide range of topics and methods, and  make the transition from students to active scholars and researchers as soon as possible.

Do you have any advice for international applicants?

I’ve written some general advice for international applicants here.

What careers does a Yale Ph.D. lead to?

A Ph.D. at Yale leads to a wide variety of positions: from LACs to research universities, to a variety of rewarding positions in policy or the private sector. In recent years the Yale department placement has been excellent, and you should contact our DGS for more details.

What do your students do after graduating?

Here is a complete list (November 2022), of all the Ph.D. students on whose committees I have served, who have completed their dissertations. I’ve listed each student’s name, thesis topic, and initial academic or policy position. This should give prospective students a sense of the range of topics that I might be able to supervise, as well as some information on where students end up after graduation.  I’ve listed the full committee for each student, with an asterisk indicating the chair. As you can see, sometimes the committee includes experts from other universities. Please send updates if you have them!

I am working with around eight current students in the Yale program. If you are thinking of Yale for graduate school please contact me directly and I’ll put you in touch with them so you can get their perspective.

Completed Ph.D.s

  1. Fahd Humayun (Yale 2022). Three Essays on Political Institutions & Foreign Policy Crisis Behaviour. [Wilkinson, Chair, Alex Debs, Vipin Narang]. Assistant Professor, Tufts University.
  2. Dipin Kaur (Yale 2022). Coethnic Counterinsurgents: Explaining Ethnicity as State Counterinsurgency Policy in South Asia. [Wilkinson, Chair, Elisabeth Wood, Paul Staniland (U. Chicago)] Assistant Professor, Ashoka University.
  3. Shikhar Singh (Yale 2022). Three Essays on Distributive Politics in India. [Wilkinson, Chair, Susan Stokes (U. Chicago), Greg Huber]. Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for the Advanced Study of India, U. Penn.
  4. Gautam Nair (Yale, 2020). The Politics of Inequality and Redistribution in Two
    Domains. [Wilkinson, Chair, Alex Debs, Greg Huber, Frances Rosenbluth] Fellowship at U. Penn, then Assistant Professor, Harvard Kennedy School.
  5. Nikhar Gaikwad (Yale, 2018). Identity Politics and Economic Policy. [Wilkinson (Chair), Kenneth Scheve (Stanford), Thad Dunning (Berkeley)] Princeton postdoc 2016-17 then Assistant Professor position at Columbia University.
  6. Gareth Nellis (Yale, 2017). Selecting India’s leaders: three empirical essays on political elites. [Wilkinson (Chair), Susan Stokes, Greg Huber]. Two year EGAP postdoc at Berkeley, then Assistant Professor, UCSD.
  7. Pia Raffler (Yale, 2017). Political oversight and local public service provision in Uganda. [Thad Dunning, Chris Blattman, Wilkinson]. Princeton Leitner predoc then Tenure Track Assistant Professor position at Harvard University.
  8. Stephen Rosenzweig (Yale, 2017). The Logic of Violence in Electoral Competition. [Thad Dunning (Chair), Susan Stokes, Kate Baldwin, Steven Wilkinson]. Tenure Track Assistant Professor position at Boston University.
  9. Niloufer Siddiqui (Yale, 2017) Explaining Party Violence: Electoral Politics and Conflict in Pakistan. [Wilkinson (Chair), Elisabeth Wood, Jason Lyall]. Two year fellowship at SUNY Albany, then Assistant Professor, SUNY Albany.
  10. Kristin Plys (Yale, Sociology, 2016). National Liberation, Class Struggle and Indian Coffee House [Julia Adams (Chair), Charles Lemert, Emily Erikson, Wilkinson]. TT Assistant Professor Position at University of Toronto.
  11. Julia Choucair Vizoso (Yale, 2016). Organizing Power: Elite Networks and Authoritarian Stability. [Ellen Lust (Chair), Steven Wilkinson, Nicholas Sambanis].  Senior Research Fellow at the Elcano Royal Institute.
  12. Francesca Grandi (Yale, 2016) Explaining sub-national variation in violence in post-WWII Italy [Stathis Kalyvas (Chair), Elisabeth Wood, Wilkinson]. Editor of the IISS Armed Conflict Survey and Senior Fellow for Conflict, Security and Development.
  13. Michael Weaver (Yale, 2016) Why does Ethnic Violence become Unacceptable? [Wilkinson]. Three year appointment to U Chicago Society of Fellows, then Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia.
  14. Rob Blair (Yale 2015), The Peacekeeper State [Nicholas Sambanis*, Chris Blattman (Chicago), Wilkinson]. Assistant Professor, Brown University.
  15. Madhavi (Divya) Devasher (Yale 2014)* Masjid versus Mandal: cross-ethnic voting in India [Steven Wilkinson (Chair), Tariq Thachil, Thad Dunning]. Princeton Post Doc in 2015-16 then Assistant Professor at University of New Hampshire.
  16. Erica de Bruin (Yale, 2014)*.  War and Coup Prevention in Developing States [Wilkinson*, Bruce Russett, Nicholas Sambanis, Thad Dunning]. Assistant Professor position, Hamilton College.
  17. Sarah Parkinson (Chicago, 2013). Reinventing Resistance: Palestinian Refugee Camps and Post-PLO Politics in Lebanon. [Lisa Wedeen, John Padgett (Chair), Wilkinson] Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota (moved to Johns Hopkins University in 2016).
  18. Nick Smith (Chicago, 2013) The Politics of Protection: Crime, Policing, and Everyday State Building in Democratic South Africa[John Comaroff, Dan Slater, Lisa Wedeen,* Steven Wilkinson]. Assistant Professor, City College of New York.
  19. Paul Kenny (Yale, 2013) From Patronage to Patriotism: Patron-Client Ties and Nationalist Mobilization in the Indian States, 1929-1949.[Jim Scott,* Keith Darden, Jacob Hacker, Wilkinson] TT Australian National University [Tenured 2016].
  20. Shivaji Mukherjee (Yale, 2013). Low Intensity Long Duration Conflict: The Maoist Insurgency in India. [Wilkinson*,  Elisabeth Wood, Kenneth Scheve, Jason Lyall]. Assistant Professor, University of Toronto.
  21. Arvind Elangovan (Chicago, SALC/History 2012).  From a Colonial to a Democratic State: The Making of the Indian Constitution 1935-50. [Dipesh Chakrabarty,* Steven Pincus, Steven Wilkinson]. Assistant Professor, Marquette.
  22. Bonnie Weir (Chicago, 2012). From Bullets to Ballots: The Political Transformation of Violent Opposition Movements. [John Mearsheimer,* Robert Pape, Steven Wilkinson]. T-T University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign [now Lecturer at Yale].
  23. Lauren Duquette (Chicago, 2011)* Migrant Collective Remittances: Transforming Public Goods and Local Democratic Governance in Mexico. [John Padgett, Alberto Simpser, Wilkinson*]. Assistant Professor, UCLA. Tenured
  24. Anoop Sadanandan (Duke, 2011). Why do States Decentralize? The Politics of Decentralization in India. [Donald L. Horowitz*, Karen Remmer,  Guillermo Trejo, Wilkinson]. Assistant Professor, Syracuse.
  25. Ong, Kian Ming (Duke, 2010). The Persistence and Breakdown of Hegemonic Party Regimes. [Donald Horowitz,* Scott de Marchi]. Lecturer UCSI (to 2013), and since May 2013 DAP Member of the Malaysian Parliament from Serdang.
  26. Paul Staniland (MIT, 2010). Explaining Cohesion, Fragmentation and Control in Insurgent Groups.[Stephen Van Evera, Roger D. Petersen*, Barry Posen, Wilkinson]. Assistant Professor, University of Chicago [Tenured 2017].
  27. Bethany Lacina (Stanford, 2010) How Insurgents Win: A Political Theory of Accommodation and Repression [David Laitin*, James D. Fearon, Jeremy Weinstein, Wilkinson]. Assistant Professor, University of Rochester. [Tenured 2018]
  28. Emily Meierding (Chicago, 2010). Fuel for the Fire? Oil and International Territorial Disputes.  [Charles Lipson*, John Mearsheimer, Wilkinson]. T-T Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland. Now Assistant professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.
  29. Mona Mehta (Chicago, 2010) Mandates of Violence: A Dilemma of Representative Democracy in Gujarat, India. [Lisa Wedeen*,  Martha Nussbaum, Dan Slater, Susanne H. Rudolph, Wilkinson]. Assistant Professor, Scripps College (now at IIM Ahmedabad).
  30. Camber Warren (Duke, 2008). Communicative Structure and the Emergence of Armed Conflict. [Robert O. Keohane,* Scott de Marchi, Chris Gelpi, Wilkinson]. Research fellow, ETH, Zurich, Switzerland (now at Naval Postgraduate School, Monterrey).
  31. Ashwini Chhatre (Duke, 2007). Democracy on the Commons: Political Competition and Local Cooperation for National Resource Management. [Meg McKean*, Karen Remmer, Randall Kramer, Wilkinson]. Assistant Professor, University of Illinois-Urbana, Geography [Now Associate Professor at Indian School of Business, Hyderabad].
  32. Yoonkyung Lee. “Democratization, Globalization and Labor Policy in Asia: The case of Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan and Thailand.” (Duke 2006) T-T, Sociology, SUNY Binghampton. [Herbert Kitschelt*, Wilkinson].
  33. Seth K. Jolly. (Duke, 2006). A Europe of Regions? Regional Integration, Sub-National Integration, and the Optimal Size of States. [Herbert Kitschelt*, Robert O. Keohane, Gary Marks, Wilkinson]. Assistant Professor, Syracuse.
  34. Ericka Ann Albaugh (Duke, 2005). The Colonial Image Reversed: Advocates of Multilingual Education in Africa. [Donald L. Horowitz*, Robert O. Keohane, Catherine Newbury, Wilkinson] Assistant Professor, Bowdoin College.
  35. Atkinson, Carol T. (Duke, 2003). The Construction of Democracy: Political Socialization through Military Engagement. [Joseph Grieco, Chris Gelpi, Scott de Marchi, Charles Krupnick, Wilkinson] Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt.
  36. Harlan Koff (Duke, 2002). Fortress Europe or a Europe of Fortresses? The integration of non European Union immigrants in Western Europe. [Peter Lange, Herbert Kitschelt, Donald L. Horowitz, Wilkinson] Assistant Professor, Université de Luxembourg.