Aditi Malik

Aditi Malik is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the College of the Holy Cross, on leave until Fall 2025. She also serves as a Visiting Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University. Her research focuses on political violence, gender-based violence, and social movements in Africa and South Asia, employing mixed-methods approaches including fieldwork and quantitative analysis. She holds a PhD from Northwestern University, an MPhil from the University of Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge Scholar, and a B.A. from Franklin & Marshall College. Her major work includes Playing with Fire: Parties and Political Violence in Kenya and India (2024), exploring party-based violence mechanisms. She has conducted fieldwork in Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, India, and Nepal, and her writing appears in journals like Human Rights Review and public outlets like The Washington Post. She actively involves Holy Cross students in her research and advocates for underrepresented groups in political science.

Education:

• Ph.D., Political Science, Northwestern University
• MPhil, International Relations, University of Cambridge (Gates Cambridge Scholar)
• B.A., Government and Economics, Franklin & Marshall College (Valedictorian)

Research Interests: Her work examines political violence dynamics, gender-based violence responses, and cross-regional comparisons. Current projects include studying public reactions to sexual violence in India and South Africa, emphasizing feminist activism and media roles. She also explores small-N comparisons to understand conflict patterns.

Awards & Affiliations:

• Gates Cambridge Scholar
• Postdoctoral Fellow, Penn State University’s Africana Research Center
• Policy collaborations with the World Bank and UN

Teaching: Courses include Introduction to Comparative Politics, African Politics, South Asian Politics, and Women, War, and Violence.