Current PhD Students

Borna's research focuses on political violence, nihilism, and digital extremism, primarily through the lens of political behaviour. His current work, supported by a SSHRC CGRS-D grant, examines the ideology of militant accelerationism, its origins, and its role in fuelling contemporary political violence.

Philip-Emmanuel's research interests lie at the intersection of the history of ideas, intellectual sociology, and political theory. Philip-Emmanuel's dissertation interrogates the links between social science methodology and politics in the works of Max Weber, Joseph Schumpeter, and Karl Polanyi. It investigates the strategies used by those actors to legitimize their theoretical production (above all vis-à-vis the rise of neoclassical economics) and examines the ties between their epistemological and ontological assumptions and their political views.

Esli's research focuses on gender, conservatism and the far-right, and media and technology. Her doctoral project focuses on women's mobilization in far-right movements in the US and Canada. Her previous work on gender-based violence and the men's rights movement has been published in Violence Against Women, the Journal of Gender Studies, and ICWSM. She is a senior doctoral fellow at the Media Ecosystem Observatory and is part of the Pol Comm Tech Lab at the University of Ottawa.

David studies the political economy of informality, digital economies, and the political dynamics of Central and Eastern Europe. His work examines the intersection of state capacity, institutional trust, and informal economic practices, with a focus on sectors such as cryptocurrency, the gig economy, and short-term rentals. Additionally, David researches the development and application of computational methods and natural language processing models to political science issues, particularly in the realm of misinformation and digital governance.

Sarah Elimam is a doctoral student in political science at McGill University, specializing in comparative politics and international relations. Her research focuses primarily on East Asian democracies (South Korea, Japan, Taiwan) and examines state-society relations, institutional dynamics, and public-private linkages in development trajectories. She also studies the adaptation strategies of middle powers in the Asia-Pacific region in the context of great power rivalries, with a particular focus on strategic issues related to supply chains, critical infrastructure, and technological sovereignty.
A recipient of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC/CGRS-D, 2026–2029) doctoral fellowship, she had also received an SSHRC master’s fellowship at the Université du Québec à Montréal, where she completed a master’s degree in political science with a unanimous “excellent” grade.
Before beginning her doctoral studies, she worked at the Ministry of International Relations and La Francophonie and then at CIRANO, where her projects focused on issues related to international trade, supply chains, economic diplomacy, and strategic infrastructure. She is also involved in CIRANO’s research cluster on intermodal transport and international trade, whose work focuses on the St. Lawrence–Great Lakes region and Canada–U.S. relations. She served as a teaching assistant in Southeast Asian politics at McGill, under the supervision of Erik Kuhonta — her PhD supervisor. Sarah is also part of the Strategic Analysis Network as an emerging scholar.

Motunrayo Esther's research explores violence and insecurity, identity politics, and democratisation in Africa. Motunrayo Esther is also engaged in social impact research in the areas of menstrual health and equity.

Alexis’ research focuses on nationalism, regionalism, federalism, and the relationships between political communities, with particular attention to public policy implications. His work uses historical and comparative approaches to Canadian federal and provincial politics.

Joseph's research interests are in democratic theory (participatory and deliberative) and new democratic practice (e-democracy, participatory policymaking, etc.). His other interests include republicanism, post-liberalism, political parties, and political psychology.

Diya Jiang is a researcher specializing in the politics of international trade and protectionism, with a focus on supply chain geopolitics. Her most recent work focuses on US-Canada relations and the economic and political consequences of declining free trade. She works closely with think tanks, research centers, and government actors to provide policy insights and inform decision-making.

Kael is a researcher specializing in Canadian politics, public policy, and multilevel governance. His doctoral research, supported by a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship, analyzes the institutional arrangements and networks that shape the delivery and oversight of disability support services across provinces. He also maintains research agendas in municipal politics, focusing on local public administration and urban governance, as well as agencification and political appointments to agencies, boards, and commissions. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Political Science Association and is active in Alberta’s disability non-profit sector.

Keywords: Canadian politics, disability policy, federalism, municipal politics, multilevel governance, urban governance, Alberta

Qinggang's research focuses on patron-client relations between political and business elites in developing countries. Specifically, Qinggang is interested in how elite networks adapt to significant shifts in political power, such as autocratization and democratization. Drawing on an original panel dataset, Qinggang's current working paper—presented at the 2023 APSR Annual Conference—examines how fiscal dependence on land finance shapes local governments’ responses to the central government’s anti-crime campaign in China. Qinggang has received training in both quantitative and qualitative methods and is proficient in a range of tools, including R, Stata, and Python.

Daniel’s research examines the doxastic implications of loyalty from a normative perspective, with a particular emphasis on the way in which group membership shapes beliefs about political and moral issues – as well as the significance of these processes for public and private discourse.

Emma studies the links between the global economic system and the perpetuation of conflicts in resource‑rich regions in the Global South. Her research explores how global capitalism may create conditions sustaining protracted violent conflicts by focusing on the structural incentives that connect resource extraction to insecurity. By combining World‑systems Analysis (WSA) with a comparative approach, she analyses the mechanisms through which actors become embedded in conflict‑fueling economic networks.

Kevin’s dissertation project focuses on the influence of Hegelian thought on the development of Canadian state institutions. Their research interests include Marxism, anti-colonial theory, existentialism, and the effects of imperialism on class-formation in the Global North.

Samantha’s dissertation project explores the role of activist architectures (encampments, squats, graffiti, and barricades) within deliberative democratic theory. Her research interests, broadly speaking, lie at the intersection of democratic theory, urban politics, and spatiality.

Srijana is a former Bhutanese refugee and a summa cum laude graduate with a B.A. in Global Studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. With professional experience in the nonprofit sector, Sapkota’s work focuses on human rights and refugee protection. Her particular research interests lie at the junction of IR and Comparative politics and examine how different refugee diasporas leverage political institutions, including IOs, to advocate for durable solutions.