About me

I am a PhD candidate in the Political Science Department at the University of Chicago.

My research focuses on international social hierarchy and non-material motivations for state behavior in international politics. I am primarily interested in how states’ desire to improve their reputation, status, or prestige influences their interactions with various international audiences.

I am also engaged in collaborative work on transitional justice and democratic stability. As one of the graduate student managers of Monika Nalepa’s lab at the University of Chicago, I was involved in updates to the previously released Global Personnel Transitional Justice Dataset and helped oversee the launch of the recently released Global Criminal Transitional Justice Dataset.

I use a wide range of social science research methods in my work. I have teaching experience in substantive international relations courses, as well as graduate and undergraduate formal theory and quantitative research methods.

Prior to graduate school, I worked as an assistant in the government affairs department of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights before joining the Harbour Group (now part of FGS Global) to do communications and public relations work for international clients.

You can reach me at stevenboyd@uchicago.edu