political science (poli sci) department

David S. Siroky

Professor

Dr. David Siroky studies conflict, cooperation, and collective action in politics and economics. Most of this work has focused on three substantive areas:

• Nationalism, particularly its separatist and irredentist strains
• The dynamics of insurgency and counterinsurgency
• The politics and international relations of Eastern Europe and Eurasia.                                                                                                         
• He is also engaged in research on methodology, and has mainly worked on Big data and machine learning, including algorithmic modeling (e.g., Random Forests and GBDT) along with text mining (e.g., NLP)
• Computational modeling (e.g., complex systems and microscale models), and
• Causal inference with unobtrusive experimental techniques (e.g., endorsements, RRM, UCT)

Ben Smith

Professor, Interim Director of the Center for Global Islamic Studies

Benjamin Smith, Professor (Ph.D. U. Washington 2002), teaches courses in comparative politics and research methods. His first book, Hard Times in the Land of Plenty: Oil Politics in Iran and Indonesia, was published in 2007 by Cornell University Press. His second book, Rethinking the Resource Curse, was published in 2021 by Cambridge University Press. His research focuses on the politics of resource wealth and on ethnic politics. From 2002 to 2004, he was an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies.