Madhavi Devasher

Madhavi Devasher is a political scientist specializing in ethnic politics, especially in South Asia. She has secondary interests in international relations, particularly conflict behavior. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University and her B.A. from Stanford University. Before arriving at UNH, she was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University. Her current book project examines the impact of ethnic and religious identity on elections in democratic societies by studying the political choices and representation of the large, vulnerable Muslim minority in India. Her work draws on qualitative and quantitative methods, extensive fieldwork in India and language proficiency in Hindi, Urdu and French. She has conducted interviews and original surveys in India, particularly Uttar Pradesh. Her research also intervenes in current Indian political debates, which she addressed through an op-ed in the Indian Express in the lead up to the Indian National Elections in 2014. She was recognized as an Exemplary Diversity Scholar by the National Center for Institutional Diversity at the University of Michigan. She has taught courses on comparative politics, international relations, terrorism and Indian politics at Yale and Princeton.