Roya Izadi

Roya Izadi serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island, where she founded the Security Forces and Society Lab within the Center for Non Violence and Peace Studies. Concurrently, she holds a Research Fellow and Faculty Consultant position at Cornell University's Gender and the Security Sector Lab (GSS Lab) in the Government Department—a role she has maintained since 2021 through progression from Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow.

Dr. Izadi's research centers on international relations and comparative politics with specialized focus on the political economy of security, civil-military relations, and political violence. She investigates how security forces—particularly militaries—interact with societal structures, examining their influence on and adaptation to economic, social, and political dynamics. A significant portion of her work addresses gender integration in security institutions through the ELSIE Initiative, which develops methodologies to overcome barriers for women in UN peace operations.

Her recent publications (2022-2024) reveal a concentrated trend in applied security sector research across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The MOWIP reports she co-authors employ standardized barrier assessment frameworks adapted to local contexts—from Cambodia's military to Senegal's gendarmerie—producing actionable recommendations on institutional culture, parental leave policies, and gender sensitivity training. This work demonstrates methodological versatility through combined large-N analysis, qualitative case studies, and field surveys.

Dr. Izadi actively secures research funding through the ELSIE Initiative's Elsie Initiative Fund, enabling multi-country collaborations with the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF), UN Women, and national security institutions. Her projects involve comprehensive fieldwork with security forces in Jordan, Bangladesh, Uganda, Uruguay, Cambodia, and Senegal, resulting in policy briefs and implementation workshops at venues including Canada's UN Mission in New York.

She leads the Security Forces and Society Lab at URI while contributing to Cornell's GSS Lab under Dr. Sabrina Karim's direction. Current projects include barrier assessments for six countries and research on how institutional socialization shapes security forces' attitudes toward violence—particularly comparing police versus military contexts. Her lab provides students with opportunities for field-based policy research and international collaboration.