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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.” Under review at American Journal of Political Science (AJPS).
Melissa Pavlik. 2024. “Producing Precarity: Repression Through State Restraint in the Lagos Informal Transport Industry” Working (Job Market) Paper.
Bush, Sarah Sunn, Hadden, Jennifer andPavlik, Melissa. 2024. “How Many INGOs Are There? Assessing Missingness and its Implications for INGO data.” Working Paper.
Pavlik, Melissa and Ryan Pike. 2024. “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.
[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
Grants, awards, honors
2023 | Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement grant from the National Science Foundaqtion (NSF) via the American Political Science Association (APSA)
2023 | Nuclear Security Fellowship from Nuclear Security Program at International Security Studies at Yale University
2023 | ISS Fellowship from International Security Studies at Yale University
2023 | Pre-Dissertation Research Grant from MacMillan Center for International Area Studies at Yale University
2022 | Graduate Fellowship from Overbrook Fellowship Fund
2018 | Postgraduate scholarship from the Sidney Perry Foundation
2018 | Postgraduate scholarship from Chizel Education Foundation Trust Award
2018 | Postgraduate scholarship from Veterans for Peace
2017 | Research Fellowship from The Hertog Foundation
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
July 2024 | European Political Science Association (EPSA)
| June 2024 | Political Economy of International Organization |
| April 2023 | Boston Area Working Group on African Political Economy (BWGAPE) |
| March 2023 | Midwestern Political Science Association (MPSA) |
| October 2022 | American Political Science Association (APSA) |
| October 2021 | Midwestern Political Science Association (MPSA) |
| October 2021 | American Political Science Association (APSA) [DECLINED - COVID] |
| October 2021 | Yale University’s Political Violence & Its Legacies (PVL) |
| October 2021 | Conflict Dynamics Workshop |
| February 2019 | Commonwealth: Countering the Diversion of Small Arms and Light Weaponry |
| July 2019 | Countering Improvised Explosive Devices (C-IED) Working Group |
| October 2019 | New Methods in Empirical Conflict Research |
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]]