Milli Lake

Dr. Milli Lake is an Associate Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics (LSE), specializing in political violence, security, state-building, and gender justice. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Washington (2014) and co-directs the Women's Rights After War project under LSE’s Gender Justice and Security HUB, funded by the NSF and UKRI. Her work examines post-war gender reforms, the ethics of field research in conflict zones, and institutional legitimacy in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Key projects include the Advancing Research on Conflict consortium, which supports doctoral students conducting fieldwork in volatile regions. Her research spans publications in top journals like the American Political Science Review and International Organization, alongside her 2018 book Strong NGOs and Weak States (Cambridge University Press). She advises international organizations such as USAID and the World Bank, focusing on gender, poverty, and governance.

Dr. Lake’s research interests converge on understanding how institutions and NGOs navigate challenges like civilian targeting in conflict, post-genocide governance, and gender-based legal reforms. Her work emphasizes intersectional approaches, analyzing how class, ethnicity, and race shape post-war outcomes for women. She also advocates for ethical research practices in high-risk settings, including guidelines for fieldwork safety and transparency in qualitative methodologies.