Welcome!

I am a LSA Collegiate Fellow (2025-2027) and incoming Assistant Professor (starting fall 2027) in the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan. I am also a faculty affiliate at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (LACS). I hold a PhD in Political Science from Columbia University. 

My research examines how policy and informal institutions intersect to shape violence, inequality, and state capacity in the Americas. I have specific interests in organization in the illicit sector, Indigenous politics, and gender. My research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy,  and the Institute for Latin American Studies at Columbia University. I have also worked in foreign policy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 

My work is published in the Annual Review of Political Science, International Studies Quarterly, PS: Political Science & Politics and World Politics, among other journals.  My Google Scholar page is here.

Contact: 

ebarham[at]umich[dot]edu