Fotini Christia is a professor of political science at MIT. She has done extensive experimental, survey and ethnographic fieldwork on ethnicity, conflict, and development in divided societies in the Muslim world. She is presently conducting research on sectarianism in Iraq, refugee return in Syria, and gender-based violence in Egypt during Covid-19. Fotini is the author of Alliance Formation in Civil War, published by Cambridge University Press in 2012, which received the Luebbert Award for Best Book in Comparative Politics, the Lepgold Prize for Best Book in International Relations and the Distinguished Book Award of the Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Migration Section of the International Studies Association. Her articles have appeared in Science, the Review of Economic Studies, American Political Science Review, Journal of Development Economics, Annual Review of Political Science and Comparative Politics, among other journals. Her opinion pieces have appeared in Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Foreign Policy. For her research, Fotini has received support from the International Growth Center, USAID, CIDA, the UN and the World Bank, among others. Fotini holds a PhD in public policy from Harvard University and a joint BA in economics-operations research and master's in international affairs from Columbia University.