Dr. Sabrina Karim is an associate professor in Government at Cornell University. She directs the Gender and Security Sector Lab funded by Global Affairs Canada and is the PI of the NSF CAREER award “The Domestic and International Politics of Global Police.”

Her research focuses on conflict and peace processes, particularly state building in the aftermath of civil war. Specifically, she studies international involvement in security assistance to post-conflict states, gender reforms in peacekeeping and domestic security sectors, and the relationship between gender and violence.

She is also co-author of the book Positioning Women in Conflict Studies: How Women’s Status Affects Political Violence (Oxford University Press, 2024). She is also the co-author of Equal Opportunity Peacekeeping: Women, Peace, and Security in Post-Conflict Countries (Oxford University Press, 2017). The book was the winner of the Conflict Research Studies Best Book Prize for 2017 and the American Political Science Association Conflict Processes Best Book Award for 2018. Her work has appeared in the American Political Science Review, International Organization, the British Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Peace Research, International Interactions, World Development, among others.

Born and raised in Colorado, Sabrina received her PhD from Emory University in 2016. Prior to her doctorate degree, she received a Fulbright Fellowship and received her master’s degree as a Clarendon Scholar from Oxford University. She has an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

Janna Solomon is the Gender and Security Sector (GSS) Lab Manager. She has prior experience in an organizational capacity through her work in the not-for-profit sector, secondary and higher education. Her interest in the work that the GSS lab is doing to increase the well-being and meaningful peacekeeping work for women globally, drew her to this position. She enjoys supportive roles which have a direct impact on people’s lives, and she is excited to see how the lab’s research will provide beneficial changes for the future.

Dr. DeAnne Roark is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate with the Gender and Security Sector Lab. Her primary research interests include gender and conflict, human rights, and peacebuilding. Her dissertation, a book project, explores the cause and effects of justice processes that address legacies of gender inequality and violence against women after episodes of mass violence and human rights abuse. Dr. Roark holds a B.A. and M.A. in Political Science from the University of Texas at Arlington and received her Ph.D. (International Relations/Research Methods) from the University of North Texas. With the GSS Lab, she assists with MOWIP projects as part of the Elsie Initiative.

Dr. Sky Kunkel is a Gender and Security Sector (GSS) Postdoctoral Research Associate and formerly a USIP Peace Scholar Fellow. They obtained their Ph.D. from the Purdue University Department of Political Science. Dr. Kunkel's research is split between research on UN Peacekeeping and Private Military and Security Contractors (PMSCs). They apply advanced methods of causal inference to uncover the effects of nonstate actors on violence perpetrated against vulnerable populations, and have experience teaching graduate students quantitative methods and causal inference. They also research PMSCs, such as Russia's Wagner Group, accused of committing war crimes in Ukraine, Mali, and the Central African Republic. Sky is a founding and executive council member of the Junior IO Scholars Workshop.

Dr. Muhib Rahman is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Government and with the Gender and Security Sector Lab at Cornell. His primary research interests include interstate conflict, security cooperation, civil-military relations, and anti-government resistance. His dissertation assesses the role of international security cooperation in domestic politics, focusing on elite defection and anti-government armed uprisings. He is also interested in applying deep learning methods in natural language processing (NLPs), including large language models (LLMs), to understand political violence. Dr. Rahman received his M.A. in Political Science from McGill University, and Ph.D. in Government from the University of Texas at Austin. With the GSS Lab, he assists with the NSF Career Project: The Domestic and International Politics of Global Police Violence.

Angie Torres-Beltran is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Political Science at Michigan State University. Her primary research interests include gender, violence, political behavior, and institutions. Her dissertation examines the political causes and consequences of gender-based violence, with an emphasis on political behavior and institutions in conflict-affected countries. Dr. Torres-Beltran received her Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University. Previously, she was a Predoctoral Fellow with the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at UCSD; Research Fellow in the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School; and a United States Institute of Peace Scholar. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the American Political Science Association, and the Empirical Study of Gender Research Network. Her work has been published in International Studies Quarterly and PS: Political Science & Politics, among others.

Zinab Attai is a PhD student in Cornell University's Department of Government with research interests in state building, rebel governance, and gender in conflict-affected areas. Her recent work investigates the institutional legacies of Soviet and US intervention in Afghanistan and its consequences on social service provision. Her research has received support from the National Science Foundation, the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, and Princeton's Empirical Studies of Conflict (ESOC) program.

Before starting her PhD, Zinab worked as an international survey researcher, managing projects in various countries including Afghanistan, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa. As a Graduate Research Fellow at the GSS lab, she has contributed to projects involving the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, the Public Security Directorate in Jordan, and the Armed Forces of Bangladesh.

Emily Jackson is a PhD Candidate in comparative politics in the Department of Government at Cornell University and a Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellow. Her research interests include social movements, reproductive politics, public opinion, and gender in Latin America and the US. Emily’s dissertation project explores the relationship between formal and informal modes of abortion access: how activists’ efforts to make abortion safe and visible influence public and elite opinion and formal policy and legal reform. Her work has been supported by the Einaudi Center for International Studies, the Reppy Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, and the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.

Kathleen Bahian Fallon is a PhD Student in International Relations in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Her research focuses on the politics of international organizations at the state and bureaucratic levels, leveraging qualitative research methods alongside computational text and network analysis. In this space, she is interested in decolonial identity and its interaction with mechanisms of control and resistance, with a particular focus on the relationship between Southeast Asian actors and powerful states. 

Clara Kantorczyk is a sophomore government major in the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University. As the social media coordinator for the GSS lab, she is responsible for running the lab’s X, LinkedIn, and Bluesky accounts, in addition to maintaining the website and helping with general communications. Clara became interested in the work of the lab and the role of women in the international field after taking one of Dr. Karim's classes. She is excited to continue learning and promoting this important area of study!

https://royaizadi.com/

http://www.laurakhuber.com/

https://mkkriner.github.io/

https://sumin-lee.com/

https://cameronrmailhot.weebly.com/

https://www.priscillattorres.com/

https://www.lindseypruett.com/

https://tayloravincent.com/

https://thaliagerzso.com/

https://www.vanessa-nr.com/

https://cornell.box.com/v/radwasaadCV2024