I am a Borders and Boundaries postdoctoral fellow at the Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania and received my Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. My research lies at the intersection of international relations, comparative politics, and political behavior. It examines the ways in which experiencing trauma and violence, both at the individual and collective levels, shape social cohesion and prospects for peace.at the Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania and received my Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. My research lies at the intersection of international relations, comparative politics, and political behavior. It examines the ways in which experiencing trauma and violence, both at the individual and collective levels, shape social cohesion and prospects for peace.
My book project, Individual Trauma, Collective Security: The Psychological Consequences of Conflict and Forced Migration on Social Cohesion, examines how the psychological implications of living through conflict and forced migration affect social cohesion. My broader research agenda investigates how to mitigate factors that make individuals and communities vulnerable to violence, as well as how violence and trauma experienced at the collective level shape group identity. I am additionally undertaking methodological research on how to conduct ethical microlevel research with populations that have experienced violence and conflict; a recent article on ethical considerations when conducting field experiments in the Global South was recently published in PS: Political Science & Politics.
My research has been supported by the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, the University of California Institute on Global Conflict & Cooperation (IGCC) Dissertation Fellowship, the Simpson Memorial Research Fellowship in International & Comparative Studies, the Malini Chowdhury Fellowship on Bangladesh Studies, and the Georg Eckert Institute Research Fellowship. I have also received the IGCC Academic Conference Grant with collaborators Justine M. Davis & Cecilia H. Mo to convene the inaugural Human Security, Violence, and Trauma Conference in May 2021. This multidisciplinary meeting brought together over 170 policymakers, practitioners, and researchers from political science, behavioral economics, psychology, and public health for a two-day seminar on the implications of conflict and forced migration; recordings from the events are now available online.
I have served as an Innovation Fellow at Beyond Conflict’s Innovation Lab, which applies research findings from cognitive and behavioral science to the study of social conflict and belief formation. I am currently serving as a Visiting Scholar at The New School for Social Research’s Trauma and Global Mental Health Lab and as a Predoctoral Research Fellow with the Human Trafficking Vulnerability Lab at the University of California, Berkeley.
On this site you can download a copy of my CV and my job market paper, read more about my book project and research, view recordings of selected talks and interviews. To get in touch, please navigate to the contact page or email me at elizabethdherman@berkeley.edu.
I am an Emmy-nominated photojournalist published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, The Boston Globe, and The Nation, among other national and international publications. For The New York Times, I pitched, researched, and co-photographed The Women of the 116th Congress, which included portraits of 130 out of 131 women members of Congress, shot in the style of historical portrait paintings. The story ran as a special section featuring 27 different covers, and was subsequently published as a book by Abrams Books with a foreword by Roxane Gay. You can view some of my photography here.