Welcome to my website! I am Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets. I received my PhD from the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University in August 2019.
My research interests broadly center around armed conflict, non-state governance and state-building, and civilian strategies of autonomy and engagement. My work is empirically grounded in fieldwork in Russia’s North Caucasus, specifically Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia where I rely on interviews, oral histories, as well as collection of original survey data and local newspapers to understand these processes. These projects have been possible with the generous assistance of the Buffett Institute for Global Studies, the ZEIT-Stiftung’s Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius, Kellogg Dispute Resolution Research Center (DRRC) and funding from Carnegie/Harriman Institute of Columbia University.
I was born in St. Petersburg, Russia but raised around Chicago. I graduated summa cum laude from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio with honors in Political Science and International Studies. Prior to attending Northwestern, I spent two years teaching high school in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Sasha Klyachkina 