McCall MacBain Scholarships - Master’s and Professional Programs

A full graduate scholarship and community to help you make a difference in the world.

Current PhD Students

Photo Name and Information

Maxime Blanchard

Maxime Blanchard

B.A. UQÀM (History & political science)

M.A. Université Laval (Political science)

maxime.blanchard [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

My work focuses on the development and evolution of political preferences in a comparative perspective. I am also interested in developing methods to improve survey data analyses.

Aengus Bridgman

Aengus Bridgman

aengus.bridgman [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

Aengus studies political behaviour and particularly participation and motivation of online political activists. He studies these phenomena in Canada and other mature democracies. Methodologically, he works with survey, census, and social media data with additional interests in data science, machine learning, natural language processing and computational social science more generally. His work has been published or is forthcoming in The Journal of Politics, The Journal of Experimental Political Science, Party Politics, The Misinformation Review, and The Canadian Journal of Political Science.

Rose Chabot

Rose Chabot

Bachelor in International Studies, Université de Montréal

rose.chabot [at] mail.mcgill.ca

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Research Interests

My research interests revolve around state-society relations in decentralized institutional settings and how political processes shape public policies, from design to implementation. My dissertation adopts a subnational comparative research design in Brazil and Argentina, and employs mixed methods to unpack how, to what extent, and under which circumstances policy-makers implement gender violence and sexual and reproductive health public policies.

Megan Cudmore

Megan Cudmore

megan.cudmore [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

I am interested in decision-making on the Supreme Court of Canada. Particularly, analyzing judges as members of a community, using sociological frameworks and role theory to study judicial behaviour and conduct both on and off the bench.

Andrey Davydov

Andrey Davydov

Postgraduate in Theory and History of Culture, Lomonosov Moscow State University

Specialist in Western European Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University

andrey.davydov [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

Andrey's research interests include ethnic nationalism, the radical right and its tensions with the centre-right, white identity, and the comparative study of these topics in Eastern Europe and Western democracies. His current project examines the impact of Russia's international support for the radical right on domestic Russian audiences and social movements.

Uvin Dissanayake

Uvin Dissanayake

MSc (Philosophy & Public Policy), The London School of Economics and Political Science

BA (Philosophy, Politics and Economics), University of York

uvin.dissanayake [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

South Asian politics, the politics of expertise, technocratic populism, judicial politics, theories of nationalism, the politics of ethnic and religious identity, personal law and legal pluralism.
Merve Erdilmen

Merve Erdilmen

MA in Political Science, 鶹
BS in Sociology, Middle East Technical University
Academic Exchange Year Certificate, Institut d'études politiques de Paris (Sciences Po Paris)
BA in Philosophy, Middle East Technical University

merve.erdilmen [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

Merve's research interests include humanitarianism, gender-based asylum, and the role of state and non-state actors in refugee management in the Middle East. Her research aims to unpack the norms and practices of women refugee empowerment policies in Turkey.

Michel Fournier-Simard

Michel Fournier-Simard

MA in Political Science & Public Policy, Sciences Po Paris - École doctorale
BA in Political Science & History, University of Ottawa

michel.fournier-simard [at] mail.mcgill.ca

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Research Interests

Michel Fournier-Simard is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at 鶹 specialized in the social impact of Artificial Intelligence. His dissertation looks at police policy making in the era of AI. As the police enacts the State monopoly of legitimate violence over a given territory, the way it engages with technological innovations to enhance this power - or not -, and how society responds, are crucial dynamics illustrative of the challenges AI poses for policy makers. When integrating police AI technological innovations, services must identify which products or services provide the best balance between optimized technical capacities and cost efficiency, while developing use policies addressing privacy, inequality and unaccountability concerns. Michel dives into the decision-making process of police policy leaders, arguing they make sense of complex AI technologies through a simplification process centred on the impact of technologies on traditional policing, the type of surveillance capacities they enhance, and the perceive maturity of each technology. In addition to his PhD research, Michel is a dedicated part-time educator in the Faculty of Political Science at Dawson College. He holds an MA in Political Science & Public Policy (École doctorale de Sciences Po - Paris), and a B.S. in Political Science & History (University of Ottawa – summa cum laude). His doctoral research is supported by a Wolfe 2020 Graduate Fellowship, as well as the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Yolaine Frossard de Saugy

Yolaine Frossard de Saugy

MA in International History from IHEID in Geneva
MSc in African Politics from SOAS, University of London

yolaine.frossarddesaugy [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

My PhD project focuses on the international fight against HIV/AIDS and minority rights, and I work on global health and African politics

Akanit Horatanakun

Akanit Horatanakun

MPA in Economic and Political Development, Columbia University
B.A. in Political Science, Chulalongkorn University

akanit.horatanakun [at] mail.mcgill.ca

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Research Interests

I study the formation of social movements and political parties, the extent to which they are institutionalized, their dynamics of interactions, and the ways in which parties and movements make use of human rights salience to create institutional and policy change. My cases involve countries in East and Southeast Asia with an in-depth investigation on Thailand and Taiwan. Before joining 鶹, I spent several years working on human rights advocacy and campaigning in Southeast Asia with a particular emphasis on Thailand.

Research Interests: Comparative Politics and Southeast Asian Politics; Parties, Social Movements, and State Relations; Politics of Human Rights.

Daniel Jacinto

Daniel Jacinto

M.A. in Political Science, University of British Columbia

B.A. (Hons.) in Korean Language/Culture, International Relations, University of British Columbia

daniel.jacinto [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

Daniel (he/him) is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science at 鶹. His doctoral research, supported by the Richard H. Tomlinson Doctoral Fellowship, focuses on rogue states’ engagement with international norms, in particular the question of partial or incomplete compliance.

Keywords: East Asia (esp. Korean Peninsula), international norms and global governance, “rogue states”

Lucas Jerusalimiec

lucas.jerusalimiec [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

Lucas's research explores how the French civil wars of the sixteenth century led to both political breakdown and governmental centralization. His project examines the conflict between increasing legislative professionalism and growing national identity using historical comparative and text analysis methods.

Research interests:early modern state development, nationalism, text-as-data methods

Se Hyun Kim

MA in Political Science, Seoul National University

BA in Political Science and International Relations, Kyunghee University

se.h.kim [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

Se Hyun’s research explores how different imaginations of social boundaries, such as nations and ethnicities, are constructed, dissipated, reinterpreted, and challenged. With a specific focus on China and Korea, his research examines the conditions under which a conceptually vague and contested symbol such as China becomes cognitively salient to the members of the imagined communities through machine learning text analysis (word embedding based on neural network language models) and interpretive methods such as ordinary language analysis.

Marjolaine Lamontagne

Marjolaine Lamontagne

MA in Political Science (International Relations) Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

BA in International Relations and International Law Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

marjolaine.lamontagne [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

Marjolaine's research interests are at the junction of IR and Comparative politics and encompass global governance, multilateral diplomacy, and international organizations, as well as federalism, multi-level governance, cultural and national diversity, and paradiplomacy (the international activities of “substate” - federated and regional - governments such as Quebec and Flanders). She mobilizes practice theory (IR) to analyze the consequences of substate involvement in multilateral organizations and conferences (UNESCO, the Council of the European Union, United Nations' Climate Change conferences) for the practices and politics of global and national governance.

Mathieu Lavigne

Mathieu Lavigne

M.Sc. in Political Science, Université de Montréal
B.Sc. in Political Science - Honours, Université de Montréal

mathieu.lavigne [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

Mathieu is interested in campaign and media effects, public opinion, political psychology, and political behavior. He has a regional focus on Canada and other Western democracies and mostly relies on survey and textual data.

Rupinder Liddar

MA in Political Science, McMaster University

HBA in Political Science, University of Toronto

rupinder.liddar [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

Rupinder studies visible minority political behaviour with a focus on the South Asian diaspora and the Sikh community. Her work seeks to articulate variations in race, ethnicity and religion and has regional interests in Canadian politics, as well as in other Western democracies.

Sashenka Lleshaj

Sashenka Lleshaj

MSc in Russia and East European Studies, University of Oxford
BA in Political Science, University of Tirana

Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship 2019-2022

sashenka.lleshaj [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

Research Interests: Memory politics, transitional justice, post-communist transition, nationalism and ethnic wars, South Eastern Europe, Orientalism and Balkanism, authoritarianism and dictatorships, legacies of communism and social cleavages, European Union, EU conditionality and democratization.

Zarlasht Muhammad Razeq

Zarlasht Muhammad Razeq

MA in International Development, University of Ottawa
MA in International Affairs, Carleton University
BA in International Economics

Website:

Email: zarlasht.muhammadrazeq [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

Zarlasht’s areas of research are the political economy of development, GVCs, and trade. Her PhD project, which focuses on the effect of trade liberalization on global value chains (GVCs), is supported by Joseph Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship & 鶹.

Research Interests: IPE, GVCs, trade & development.

Sarah Nandi

Sarah Nandi

MSc Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, Oxford University
MA in History, UC Davis
BA in International Relations, History, and French Language and Literature from Montana State University

sarah.nandi [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

Sarah's interests include humanitarianism and gender-based violence (GBV) in protracted refugee situations. Using qualitative methods, she examines questions surrounding long-term GBV prevention programming, immediate GBV assessments, and informal remedies comparatively in the South Asian subcontinent and the Levant.

Pechsiree Pechvijitra

Pechsiree Pechvijitra

B.A. in Political Science with a minor in Public Policy from the University of California at Berkeley

pechsiree.pechvijitra [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

My research focuses on the effects of public policy and partisanship on voters’ decisions in Thailand. More generally, I am interested in the factors that shape voters’ attitudes about democracy and governance in developing democracies in Southeast Asia.

Bilal Shakir

bilal.shakir [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

Bilal is interested in understanding and evaluating modes and mechanisms of policy formulation in democratizing societies. Broadly speaking, he is interested in studying the linkage between the structure of domestic political infrastructure and democratic performance. Particularly, Bilal is interested in the usefulness of actively creating ‘democratic facades’ as a means of retaining autocratic power in democratizing societies.

Research Interests: Comparative politics and International relations.

Erik Underwood

Erik Underwood

erik.underwood [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

Erik Underwood is currently pursuing his PhD degree in Political Science at 鶹 under the supervision of T.V. Paul. Previously, he completed his masters at 鶹 and his undergraduate education at the University of Toronto. He specializes in international relations, with his main research interest being status relations in international politics. His dissertation is on the topic of the foreign propaganda strategies of rising powers targeting the West, particularly those of China and Russia, and how these strategies fit into their larger status and geopolitical ambitions.

Vertika

Vertika

Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Political Science, University of Delhi (Lady Shri Ram College for Women), 2010
Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding Post Graduate Diploma, University of Delhi, (Lady Shri Ram College for Women), 2011
Certificate Course in Human Rights, Indira Gandhi National Open University, 2011
Master of Arts in Political Science, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2012
Master of Philosophy in Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2014

vertika.vertika [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

Normative Political Theory with those who struggle, Comparative qualitative research on gender in India intersected with contemporary political theory on agency, Democratic Theory with special emphasis on Habermas' 'Discourse Ethics' and alternatives to deliberative democracy such as agonistic politics, Feminist, Race and Postcolonial Theory, Critical Theory, Biopolitics, Foucault and Foucauldian Methods, Marxism and Marxist scholarship, State and Constitutional Theory.

Hiba Zerrougui

Hiba Zerrougui

hiba.zerrougui [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Research Interests

My dissertation examines state capacity building strategies in neopatrimonial regimes and relates them to contentious dynamics. I employ a mixed methods research design and focus on Middle East and North African politics.

Research Interests: Comparative clientelism, state-building, and contentious politics in authoritarian regimes.

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