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Welcome to my website. I am an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Davis. For the 2016-17 academic year, I visited Princeton University as a Fellow in the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance


My research is on international political economy using statistical methods for causal inference.  I aim to understand how international courts promote economic cooperation among countries and when domestic politics mediates their effect. This research is featured in my new book. The National Science Foundation and the Hellman Fellows Program have supplied generous funding to support my projects. Other recent work uses machine learning with text-as-data.  My colleagues Dr. Russ, Dr. Stahmer, Dr. Tai and I have been awarded the 2024 UC Davis L&S Unites grant for joint work investigating commercial determinants of global public health. 


I earned a Ph.D. in Political Science and a M.S. in Statistics, both from University of California, Los Angeles. I also have a B.S. in engineering physics from Cornell University. Prior to my academic career, I worked as a patent agent for WilmerHale in the Boston office, focusing on patent prosecution for semiconductor and nano technology.

LAUREN PERITZ

University of California, Davis ​

Department of Political Science 

680 Kerr Hall