Team directory
Team directory
Benjamin Polak, William C Brainard Professor of Economics; Professor of Management
Professor Polak is an expert on decision theory, game theory, and economic history. His work explores economic agents whose goals are richer than those captured in traditional models. His work on game theory ranges from foundational theoretical work on common knowledge, to applied topics in corporate finance and law and economics. Most recently, he has made contributions to the theory of repeated games with asymmetric information. Other research interests include economic inequality and individuals’ responses to uncertainty.
Shirin Purkayastha, ISPS Graduate Policy Fellow, 2026
Shirin Purkayastha is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Departments of Black Studies and Sociology. Her research examines the consequences of financialization for the popular music industry. She is currently researching how firm-level changes following the Telecommunications Act of 1996 shaped the discursive labor of hip-hop journalism.
As an ISPS Fellow, she will examine how platform economies organize the work and subjectivities of cultural workers. Prior to Yale, she worked as a policy researcher at UCSF and the Vera Institute of Justice.
Eli Rau, Postdoctoral Associate
Eli Rau is a postdoctoral associate with the Democratic Innovations program at ISPS and the Leitner Program in International and Comparative Political Economy. His primary areas of research include comparative electoral institutions, voter turnout, and democratic erosion. In current research projects, he examines the link between economic inequality and democratic erosion; whether compulsory voting is good for democracy; and how norms of reciprocity can enable democratic erosion even in the absence of strong partisanship.
Shir Raviv, External Postdoctoral Associate (Columbia University)
Shir Raviv is a political scientist who studies the politics of using AI in public policy implementation. She employs experimental methods to investigate how citizens perceive and react to the use of data-driven algorithms in high-stakes domains such as criminal justice, policing, welfare, and education. She also examines how their views change after receiving information or having personal experience with the technology. Before joining Columbia University in September 2023, Dr. Raviv earned her Ph.D. and M.A.
Jordyn Ricard, ISPS Graduate Policy Fellow, 2026
Jordyn R. Ricard is a PhD Candidate in Clinical Psychology. Her research examines how exposure to community violence shapes mental health outcomes. She also examines how structural interventions can mitigate the negative effects of community violence, with the goal of promoting safer communities, improving well-being, and reducing pathways into the legal system. As an ISPS Fellow, she is investigating how psychological adaptations to community and structural threat interact to confer risk for mental health problems. Prior to Yale, she earned her B.S.
Jennifer Richeson, Philip R. Allen Professor of Psychology
Jennifer Richeson is the Philip R. Allen Professor of Psychology and a faculty fellow with ISPS. Her research examines multiple psychological phenomena related to cultural diversity. For instance, she examines how people experience racial and other forms of societal diversity, be it efforts to navigate one-on-one interracial interactions or the political consequences of the increasing racial/ethnic diversity of the United States.
Laila Robbins, Yale College, History
Laila Robbins is a junior at Yale studying History with a focus on pathologization. At Yale Law School, she currently researches discretionary sentencing enhancements for repeat drug offenders. Previously, Laila interned for Honorable Katherine B. Forrest (U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York). On campus, as Vice President of the Yale Undergraduate Prison Project, Laila mentors inmates at a Connecticut prison and facilitates re-entry initiatives in New Haven.
Yanitza Rodriguez, ISPS Graduate Policy Fellow, 2026
Yanitza Rodriguez is a fourth-year PhD candidate in the Department of Cellular & Molecular Physiology at Yale University, working in Dr. Rachel J. Perry’s lab. Her research examines how obesity-driven metabolic dysregulation affects ovarian function, fertility, and women’s reproductive health, with a particular interest in translating basic metabolic physiology into clinical and policy-relevant insights.
John Roemer, Elizabeth S. and A. Varick Stout Professor of Political Science and Economics
John Roemer is the Elizabeth S. and A. Varick Professor of Political Science and Economics. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, and has been a Fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation and the Russell Sage Foundation. His research concerns political economy, and distributive justice. He is currently teaching Political Competition and a Workshop in Political Economy. Publications include: Political Competition, Harvard University Press, 2001; Equality of Opportunity, Harvard University Press, 1998, Theories of Distributive Justice, Harvard University Press, 1996.
Doug Rogers, Professor of Anthropology and Faculty Director of the Program in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Douglas Rogers is Professor of Anthropology and Faculty Director of the Program in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at Yale University. His research and teaching interests in political and economic anthropology; natural resources (especially oil) and energy; corporations; the anthropology of religion and ethics; historical anthropology; and socialist societies and their postsocialist trajectories.