Michelle Reddy
Recent Media:
CIVICA Data Science Seminar
"The Making of a French Migration Crisis"
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American Sociology Association Political Sociology
Section Book Talk
Aftershock: Aid, Ebola, and Civil Society in West Africa
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Feature on Sciences Po CERI website Pandemic Politics
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Publications:
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"Flattening the Curve: Voluntary Association Participation and the 2013-2016 West Africa Ebola Epidemic." Disasters.
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"Higher Education's Influence on Social Networks and Entrepreneurship in Brazil." Social Network Analysis and Mining.
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"Women’s Organizations on the Frontline: The Peacebuilding Project and the Fight Against Ebola and COVID-19." In Women's Contributions to Development in West Africa: Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Lives, edited by Kelly Ann Krawcyzk and Bridgett A. King.
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Invited Book Review of Simukai Chigidu's The Political Life of an Epidemic: Cholera, Crisis and Citizenship in Zimbabwe. Politicizing Pandemics Special Debates Review. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute.
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"Who Receives a Contract During a Humanitarian Crisis? Organizational professionalism, politicization, and international cooperation during the 2013-2016 West Africa Ebola epidemic." In Research Handbook on the Sociology of Organizations, edited by Mary Godwyn. Edward Elger.
"Humanitarian Aid as a Shared and Contested Common Resource." In The Cambridge Handbook of Commons Research Innovations, edited by Sheila R. Foster and Chrystie F. Swiney.
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"Do Good Fences Make Good Neighbors? Neighborhood Effects of Foreign Funding Restrictions to NGOs." Oxford University St. Antony's International Review.
Welcome! I am an Assistant Adjunct Professor and Program Director for the Master of Development Practice (MDP) at the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley. Previously I was a lecturer at Sciences Po and Stanford University, as well as a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Studies at Sciences Po in Comparative Politics and International Relations.
My research is driven by the broad question of "how can we empower communities to participate in humanitarian and development aid?" Related questions include "what is the role of local organizations (nonprofits, schools, local governments) in improving disaster outcomes and resilience?", "how do slow-burning crises such as climate change emerge and evolve?", and "how can we address the widening gaps between data and policy outcomes on crises such as migration?"
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I draw on computational social science methods as well as interviews to understand to what extent local organizations contribute to civic capacity and enhance crisis response and development outcomes. My work is comparative and I have studied these questions across several countries (Afghanistan, Algeria, Brazil, France, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and the United States). I draw on several disciplines, namely, comparative politics and organizational sociology.
I examine the social construction, emergence, and evolution of three international crises (Ebola, migration, and COVID-19) and role of local organizations in crisis response. My current work primarily focuses on investigating the emergence and evolution of slow-burning crises like migration, pandemics, and climate change, focusing on disconnects between crisis realities and policy outcomes. I also investigate how crises challenge the legitimacy of international, regional, and government organizations, and oftentimes illustrate broader challenges to democracy, and the extent to which these larger organizations work with local organizations during crisis response.
From 2017-2018 I was a Fulbright Scholar in Sierra Leone and Guinea. I received both a PhD (International Comparative Education) and an MA (Political Science) from Stanford University. I have worked for several international organizations, including the UNOWA, UNESCO, universities, aid agencies, and research centers, including the Stanford Center on Deliberative Democracy in a partnership with USAID and the Africa Resilience Lab, and the Earth Institute at Columbia University.