Ph.D. Job Market Candidates

Below is an alphabetical list of Yale Ph.D. students and recent graduates currently on the job market. Please feel free to contact them, their advisors, or the DGS for additional information. 

Any Yale Graduate Student wishing to be added to this page can do so by filling out our PhD Job Market Candidates submission form.

Placement Officers

Sarah Khan
115 Prospect Street
Rosenkranz Hall,  Room 213
sarah.khan@yale.edu

Elisabeth Wood
115 Prospect Street
Rosenkranz Hall
Phone: (203) 432-6107
elisabeth.wood@yale.edu

Current Students

Leila Ben Abdallah
Dissertation Title:  “The Limits of Shame: Indigenous Political Critique of U.S. Settler Colonialism”
Areas of Concentration:  Political Theory
References: Giulia Oskian, Karuna Mantena, Aziz Rana
Email:  leila.benabdallah@yale.edu

Matthew Denney
Personal Website (link is external)
Dissertation Title:  “The Fragmented Gateway to Collective Repentance: Race, Policing, and the Black Church in America”
Areas of Concentration:  American Politics; Race, Ethnicity, and Politics; Policing; Religion; American Political Development
Advisors List:  Jacob Hacker, Elisabeth Wood, Allison Harris
 Email:  matthew.denney@yale.edu

Ramon Garibaldo Valdez
Dissertation Title:  “La lucha de cada dia: Immigrant Justice Activism and the Political Remaking of Illegality in the U.S.”
Areas of Concentration:  American Politics, Race, Ethnicity, and Politics (REP), Social Movements, Qualitative Methods
References:  Elisabeth Wood and Vesla Weaver (John Hopkins University)
Email:  ramon.garibaldo@yale.edu

Michael Goldfien

Personal Website (link is external)
Dissertation Title:  “Essays on Domestic Politics and Diplomacy”
Areas of Concentration:  International relations, international cooperation, public policy, U.S. foreign policy, political economy
Advisors List:  Alexandre Debs, Sarah Bush, Elizabeth Saunders, Nuno Monteiro
Email:   michael.goldfien@yale.edu
C.V.
 

Danny Hirschel-Burns

Personal Website (link is external)
Dissertation Title: “: The Ideological Socialization of Civilians During Civil War”
Areas of Concentration:  Comparative Politics, International Relations, Qualitative Methods, Political Violence
Advisors List: Elisabeth Wood, James Scott, Dan Mattingly, Egor Lazarev
Email:  daniel.hirschel-burns@yale.edu
C.V.
 

William Kwok

Dissertation Title: “The Banality of Organization: Mass killings as a coordination problem in the shadow of war”
Areas of Concentration:  Comparative Politics, International Relations, Political Theory, Qualitative and Archival Methods, Advanced Statistics
Advisors List:  Elisabeth Wood, Ben Kiernan, Stathis Kalyvas, James Scott
Email:  william.kwok@yale.edu

Vatsal Naresh

Personal Website (link is external)
Dissertation Title: “Democracy’s Violence: Majorities, Identities, and Sociality”
Areas of Concentration:  Political Theory, Comparative Politics, Qualitative Methods
Advisors List:  Karuna Mantena, Giulia Oskian, Hélène Landemore
Email:   vatsal.naresh@yale.edu

Shikhar Singh

Personal Website (link is external)
Dissertation Title: “Three Essays on Distributive Politics in India”
Areas of Concentration: Comparative Politics, Quantitative Methods, American Politics
Advisors List:  Gregory Huber, Susan Stokes, Steven Wilkinson (Chair)
Email:  shikhars@sas.upenn.edu
C.V.
 

Ariel Yingqi Tang
Dissertation Title: “The Apprenticeship of Selfhood: Bildung and the Politics of Education”
Areas of Concentration: Political Theory
Advisors List: Bryan Garsten, Steven Smith, Isaac Nakhimovsky
Email: yingqi.tang@yale.edu

Joy Wang

Dissertation Title: “: Contested Developments: Regime and Social Theory in the Age of Decolonization”
Areas of Concentration: political theory, political economy, qualitative methods
Advisors List:  Karuna Mantena, Giulia Oskian, James C. Scott
Email:  joy.wang@yale.edu
 

Jennifer D. Wu

Personal Website (link is external)
Dissertation Title: “The Politics of Asian-ness: Understanding the Importance of National Origin and Group Membership on the Political Representation”
Areas of Concentration: American Politics, Political Economy
Advisors List: Gregory Huber, Jacob Hacker, Allison Harris
Email: jennifer.wu@yale.edu
C.V.

Recent Graduates

Tyler Bowen

Personal Website (link is external)
Dissertation Title: “The Logic of Escalation and the Benefits of Conventional Military Superiority”
Areas of Concentration: International Relations, International Security, Nuclear Politics, U.S. Foreign Policy
Advisors List: Nuno Monteiro, Alexandre Debs
Email:  tbowen8@jh.edu
C.V.

Carmen Lea Dege
Personal Website (link is external)
Dissertation Title: “The Ethos of Non-Indifference: Max Weber’s Challenge and Karl Jaspers’s Response”
Areas of Concentration: Critical Theory, Political Epistemology, Democratic Theory
Advisors List:  Seyla Benhabib,  Giulia Oskian, Bryan Garsten
Email:  carmend@vanleer.org.il

Nate Grubman
Personal Website (link is external)
Dissertation Title: “ Party Systems and Social Cleavages in New Democracies: Skipping Class in Postuprising Tunisia”
Areas of Concentration: Comparative Politics, Political Economy, Quantitative Methods, North African Politics
Advisors List: Adria Lawrence, Elizabeth Nugent, Milan Svolik
Email:  ngrubman@stanford.edu

Trevor Incerti

Personal Website (link is external)
Dissertation Title: “Essays in corruption and capture”
Areas of Concentration:  Political economy, comparative politics, quantitative methods
Email:  trevor.incerti@yale.edu

Sophie Jacobson
Personal Website (link is external)
Dissertation Title: “Preschool Politics: Policy-Adaptive Political Preferences & the Crosscutting Feedback Effects of Short-supplied Social Benefits”
Areas of Concentration: American politics; political economy (APE/CPE); social policy & inequality; women & politics
Advisors List:  Jacob Hacker; Jennifer Hochschild, Vesla Weaver, Frances Rosenbluth
Email:  sophiejacobson@fas.harvard.edu

Constantine Manda

Personal Website (link is external)
Dissertation Title: “Three Essays in African Politics”
Areas of Concentration:  Comparative Politics; Political Economy; American Politics
Advisors List:  Kate Baldwin (Chair); Dan Mattingly; Emily Sellars; and the late Frances Rosenbluth
Email:   constantinemanda@gmail.com

Nica Siegel
Personal Website (link is external)
Dissertation Title: “Specters of Exhaustion: The Phenomenology of Action and the Horizon of Critique”
Areas of Concentration: Political Theory, Law, Comparative Politics
Advisors List:  Seyla Benhabib, Karuna Mantena, Paul North
Email:  nica.siegel@yale.edu

James Sundquist
Personal Website (link is external)
Dissertation Title: “Three Essays on Chinese Sovereign Lending”
Areas of Concentration: International Organizations, China, International Political Economy
Advisors List:  Frances Rosenbluth, Daniel Mattingly, Didac Queralt
Email:  james.sundquist@yale.edu