Fox Fellowship Postdoctoral Associates
2026-2027
William Kwok, Postdoctoral Associate with the Fox International Fellowship
William Kwok is the Fox International Fellowship Postdoctoral Associate at Yale University. His research lies at the intersection of comparative politics, international relations, and political economy. He studies why violent and nonviolent conflict emerges and escalates, and how political actors, organizations, and institutions shape these processes across authoritarian and democratic systems in Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Europe.
His book project, “The Banality of Organization: Mass Killings as a Coordination Problem in the Shadow of War,” advances an organizational theory of mass killings, explaining why national leaders issue strategically ambiguous policies and why local commanders escalate them into mass violence against civilians. William also studies polarization and democratic instability, focusing on why political polarization varies across democracies and how globalization, party strategies, and changes in party systems contribute to its rise and decline. Across both projects, his research combines AI, computational, quantitative, historical, and interview methods to explain the causes, organization, and escalation of conflict. His research contributes to political science debates on violence, democratic (in)stability, and political polarization.
Prior to taking up his current postdoctoral appointment with Fox, William served as the Leitner Postdoctoral Associate at Yale’s Jackson School of Global Affairs and Senior Essay Advisor in Yale’s Ethics, Politics, and Economics (EPE) Program. He previously held fellowships at Heidelberg University, the Geneva Graduate Institute (IHEID), and the National University of Singapore. His research has been supported by sources such as Fulbright-Hays DDRA and the MacMillan Center.
William earned his PhD, MPhil, and MA in Political Science from Yale University. Prior to graduate school, he worked at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Council on Foreign Relations, State Street Corporation, and founded an educational consulting practice for international students from East Asia.
2024-2026
Bastien Charaudeau , Postdoctoral Associate with the Fox International Fellowship
2023-2024
Veronica Hurtado, Postdoctoral Associate with the Fox International Fellowship
Veronica Hurtado is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Her research focuses on political economy of development and political behavior, with a regional specialization in Latin America. In her dissertation, titled “Competing without parties: Voter mobilization in Peru”, she studies the dynamic of electoral competition in democracies with weak political parties using a mixed method design that combines in-depth interviews, archival work, and statistical analysis of both experimental and observational data.
While at Yale, Veronica plans to prepare a book manuscript based on the findings of her dissertation, applying her theory to two other cases: Bolivia and Guatemala. She will also continue working collaborative projects focused on information processing in the developing world, specifically on the topic of misinformation. For more information, see: https://vhurtadol.github.io
2021-2022
Isabel Jijon, Postdoctoral Associate with the Fox International Fellowship
Isabel has a Ph.D. with distinction in sociology from Yale University and a B.A. Magna Cum Laude from Yale College. While at Yale, Isabel will continue working on her research project, The Dignity of Working Children? Recognition and Stigma in the Global Fight Against Child Labor, which studies a transnational advocacy campaign promoting a moral distinction. In addition, she will be mentoring Fox International Fellows, conduct a weekly seminar for the Program, advise prospective applicants, serve on the Selection Committee, and help the Fox Academic Director with designing and implementing the academic trainings for the fellows. Isabel is also a Research Consultant at UNICEF and a Research Associate at the Dignity and Debt Network in Princeton University.