Graduate Policy Fellows

Adriana Cerón is a PhD candidate in Sociology at Yale University. Her research uses multiple methods to examine the impact of U.S. immigration policy, immigration enforcement, and legal statuses on the lives of immigrants and their families, particularly those from Central America. Currently, Adriana’s work contributes to the growing literature on the aftermath of deportation. Her dissertation unravels the far-reaching consequences of the deportation regime on Salvadorans deported from the U.S., including those who return to the U.S. after deportation. She earned her B.A.

Zainab Firdausi is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Theory. She is currently writing her dissertation which investigates plural conceptions of political legitimacy of the administrative state. A strong believer of the need to interact policy with theory, her research interests span democratic theory, economic inequality, modern US history, and legal history. Through ISPS, Zainab seeks to study the quality of democratic participation in administrative policymaking.

Kim Gannon (she/her) is a PhD Candidate in the Yale School of Public Health, Department of Health Policy and Management. Her research explores drug policy, particularly punitive policies passed as a reaction to the fentanyl-driven overdose crisis. Specifically, she studies the influence of public opinion on formation and implementation of these policies, as well as their unintended consequences on the health and well-being of people who use drugs, particularly in communities of color, once implemented.

Zhouyan Liu is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science. His research interests include authoritarian politics and historical political economy. He is currently working on a project concerning diasporas from authoritarian countries and the political consequences of migration in both sending and receiving countries, with a particular focus on China as an empirical case. Prior to attending Yale, he worked as an investigative journalist for four years at one of China’s largest news magazines, Sanlian Life Weekly. He received his B.A. from Peking University and M.P.P.