María Ignacia Curiel is a Research Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and Research Affiliate of the Poverty, Violence and Governance Lab at Stanford University. Curiel is an empirical political scientist using experimental, observational, and qualitative data to study questions of violence and democratic participation, peacebuilding, and representation.

Her research primarily explores political solutions to violent conflict and the electoral participation of parties with violent origins. This work includes an in-depth empirical study of Comunes, the Colombian political party formed by the former FARC guerrilla, as well as a broader analysis of rebel party behaviors across different contexts. More recently, her research has focused on democratic mobilization and the political representation of groups affected by violence in Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela.

Hector Fuentes is a Visiting Scholar at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. His research focuses on Venezuelan elections, exploring the dynamics that led to this semi-competitive election, analyzing the strategic successes of the opposition, and identifying windows of opportunity for fostering a transition to democracy in Venezuela.

Dorothy Kronick is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at Berkeley. She studies contemporary Latin American politics, focusing on Venezuelan politics and the politics of crime and policing. Her work has been published in the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, Science, and Science Advances, among other outlets. Her commentary on Venezuelan politics has appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Harold Trinkunas is a Senior Research Scholar and the Deputy Director at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. His work has examined civil-military relations, ungoverned spaces, terrorist financing, emerging power dynamics, and global governance.

Diego A. Zambrano is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Global Programs at Stanford Law School, specializing in the areas of civil litigation and comparative law. He is also the faculty director of the Neukom Center for the Rule of Law and Faculty Affiliate at the Center on Democracy, Development and Rule of Law at Stanford University. 

Alberto Diaz-Cayeros joined the FSI faculty in 2013 after serving for five years as the director of the Center for US-Mexico studies at the University of California, San Diego. He earned his Ph.D at Duke University in 1997. He was an assistant professor of political science at Stanford from 2001-2008, before which he served as an assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles. Diaz-Cayeros has also served as a researcher at Centro de Investigacion Para el Desarrollo, A.C. in Mexico from 1997-1999. His work has focused on federalism, poverty and violence in Latin America, and Mexico in particular. He has published widely in Spanish and English. His book Federalism, Fiscal Authority and Centralization in Latin America was published by Cambridge University Press in 2007 (reprinted 2016). His latest book (with Federico Estevez and Beatriz Magaloni) is: The Political Logic of Poverty Relief Electoral Strategies and Social Policy in Mexico. His work has primarily focused on federalism, poverty and economic reform in Latin America, and Mexico in particular, with more recent work addressing crime and violence, youth-at-risk, and police professionalization. He currently serves as the co-director of the Democracy Action Lab at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDRRL) at the Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI).

This event has reached capacity. Registration is now closed.

EVENT UPDATE: Due to overwhelming interest, registration for this event is now on a first-come, first-served basis with no waitlist to ensure fairness and accommodate as many guests as possible. Seating is not guaranteed, so please arrive early. An overflow space will be available. Expect a confirmation email from our event team by January 22.

Anna Grzymała-Busse is a professor in the Department of Political Science, the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the director of The Europe Center. Her research interests include political parties, state development and transformation, informal political institutions, religion and politics, and post-communist politics. Anna's most recent book, Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State argues that the medieval church was a fundamental force in European state formation.

Didi Kuo is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. She is a scholar of comparative politics with a focus on democratization, corruption and clientelism, political parties and institutions, and political reform. She is the author of The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don’t (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) and Clientelism, Capitalism, and Democracy: the rise of programmatic politics in the United States and Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

She has been at Stanford since 2013 as the manager of the Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective and is co-director of the Fisher Family Honors Program at CDDRL. She was an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at New America and is a non-resident fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She received a PhD in political science from Harvard University, an MSc in Economic and Social History from Oxford University, where she studied as a Marshall Scholar, and a BA from Emory University.

Beatriz Magaloni is the Graham Stuart Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science. Magaloni is also a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, where she holds affiliations with the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). She is also a faculty affiliate at Stanford’s King Center for Global Development. Magaloni has taught at Stanford University for over two decades.

She leads the Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab (PovGov). Founded by Magaloni in 2010, PovGov is one of Stanford University’s leading impact-driven knowledge production laboratories in the social sciences. Under her leadership, PovGov has innovated and advanced a host of cutting-edge research agendas aimed at reducing violence and poverty and promoting peace, security, and human rights.

Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), and a Senior Fellow at CDDRL and the Center on International Security and Cooperation at FSI. From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford and she teaches in the Department of Political Science, and in the Program on International Relations, as well as in the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.

María Ignacia Curiel is a Research Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and Research Affiliate of the Poverty, Violence and Governance Lab at Stanford University. Curiel is an empirical political scientist using experimental, observational, and qualitative data to study questions of violence and democratic participation, peacebuilding, and representation.

Her research primarily explores political solutions to violent conflict and the electoral participation of parties with violent origins. This work includes an in-depth empirical study of Comunes, the Colombian political party formed by the former FARC guerrilla, as well as a broader analysis of rebel party behaviors across different contexts. More recently, her research has focused on democratic mobilization and the political representation of groups affected by violence in Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela.

Virtual participation available via Zoom using the link above. Zoom Meeting ID: 997 4878 4037, Passcode: 998456

We invite our virtual participants to join in celebrating Marcel Fafchamps' distinguished career. Following the keynote address, at 10:00 AM PST, there will be an opportunity for online attendees to offer brief remarks or words of appreciation to honor Professor Fafchamps and his many contributions to scholarship, mentorship, and our academic community. Your reflections are a valued part of this special occasion.

Hakeem Jefferson is an assistant professor of political science at Stanford University and faculty director of the Program on Identity, Democracy, and Justice at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. His research centers on questions of race, identity, and political behavior in the United States. He is currently completing a book based on his award-winning dissertation that explores why members of stigmatized groups sometimes engage in policing and punishing their own. His academic work has been published in The American Political Science Review, Public Opinion Quarterly, Perspectives on Politics, and Electoral Studies. In addition to his scholarly work, Jefferson is a frequent contributor to public conversations about race and American politics, with writing appearing in outlets such asThe New York Times, FiveThirtyEight, The Washington Post, and The San Francisco Chronicle. He is a proud graduate of the University of Michigan and South Carolina public schools.

Karina Kloos is the Executive Director for the Democracy Hub and the newly launched ePluribus Stanford initiative.

Karina has also co-led the design and implementation of other emergent programs at Stanford, including the signature faculty fellowship, postdoctoral fellowship, PhD fellowship and Scholars in Service programs with Stanford Impact Labs, and the RAISE (Research, Action and Impact through Strategic Engagement) Doctoral Fellowship with the Vice Provost of Graduate Education.

She has professional experience in the domestic nonprofit, international development, and philanthropy sectors, and has published in both academic and media outlets on land rights; women’s rights; indigenous rights; sustainability; nonprofit evaluation; social movements; and democracy, including co-authorship with Doug McAdam of the 2014 book Deeply Divided: Racial Politics and Social Movements in Postwar America.

Having spent more than a decade at Stanford – the place where she met her husband and has brought two wee ones into the world – Karina is invested in the vibrancy and health of our community, as well as leveraging the immense talent and resources we have to engage and contribute positively beyond the university. She received her PhD in Sociology from Stanford in 2014.

Alison Kamhi is the Legal Program Director based in San Francisco. Alison leads the ILRC's Immigrant Survivors Team and conducts frequent in-person and webinar trainings on naturalization and citizenship, family-based immigration, U visas, and FOIA requests. She also provides technical assistance through the ILRC's Attorney of the Day program on a wide range of immigration issues, including immigration options for youth, consequences of criminal convictions for immigration purposes, removal defense strategy, and eligibility for immigration relief, including family-based immigration, U visas, VAWA, DACA, cancellation of removal, asylum, and naturalization and has co-authored a number of publications on the same topics. Alison facilitates the nine member Collaborative Resources for Immigrant Services on the Peninsula (CRISP) collaborative in San Mateo County to provide immigration services to low-income immigrants in Silicon Valley. Prior to the ILRC, Alison worked as a Clinical Teaching Fellow at the Stanford Law School Immigrants' Rights Clinic. Before Stanford, she represented abandoned and abused immigrant youth as a Skadden Fellow at Bay Area Legal Aid and at Catholic Charities Community Services in New York. She clerked for the Honorable Julia Gibbons in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Alison received her J.D. from Harvard Law School and her B.A. from Stanford University.

DeCarol Davis is the Director of the Community Legal Services program, which provides free legal services to low-wage workers at Workers’ Rights Clinics throughout California. Prior to joining Legal Aid at Work in 2020, Davis, in addition to bartending and managing house at Shotgun Players, Ashby Stage, conducted international legal research with the University of Sydney, Australia on the exploitation of migrant workers. Prior to her research, Davis litigated as a plaintiff-side employment attorney at Bryan Schwartz Law.

As a Truman Scholar, Davis received her J.D. from Berkeley Law in 2017, where she served as a student director of the Workers’ Rights Clinic, was a two-time mock trial national champion, including regional and national titles in the ABA Labor and Employment Law Competition, and earned the Francine Marie Diaz Memorial Award for distinguished public service.

Before becoming an attorney, Davis was an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard.  Davis, who graduated top of her class at the Coast Guard Academy in 2008 with a degree in Electrical Engineering, served as a marine inspector, the author of Coast Guard field regulations, and a law enforcement officer. During her service, she was awarded the Judge Advocate General Field Regulations Award, Meritorious Team Commendation, and the Department of Defense STEM Role Model Award.
In 2022, she received the Berkeley Law Kathi Pugh Award for Exceptional Mentorship.

Pamela Karlan is the Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law and co-director of the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic at Stanford Law School. She has argued ten cases before the Court and worked on over one hundred.

Pam’s primary scholarship involves constitutional litigation. She has published dozens of articles and is the co-author of three leading casebooks as well as a monograph on constitutional interpretation—Keeping Faith with the Constitution. She has received numerous teaching awards.

Pam’s public service including clerking for Justice Harry Blackmun, a term on California’s Fair Political Practices Commission, and two appointments as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice. She was also an assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Pam is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute, where she serves on the ALI Council. In 2016, she was named one of the Politico 50 — a group of “thinkers, doers, and visionaries transforming American politics”; earlier in her career, the American Lawyer named her to its Public Sector 45 — a group of lawyers “actively using their law degrees to change lives.”