Leadership
Susanna Campbell
Dr. Susanna Campbell is a Provost Associate Professor in the Department of Foreign Policy and Global Security, School of International Service (SIS) and the Director of the Research on International Policy Implementation Lab (RIPIL) at American University. Her research examines research-to-policy translation as well as interactions between international and domestic actors in fragile and conflict-affected contexts, addressing debates in the statebuilding, peacebuilding, peacekeeping, international aid, global governance, and foreign policy literatures. She uses mixed-method research designs and has conducted extensive fieldwork in conflict-affected countries, including Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, East Timor, Nepal, South Sudan, and Sudan. Her research has been supported by awards from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Humanity United, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the US National Science Foundation, the Swedish and Dutch governments, and the United Nations.
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Shagun Gupta
Shagun Gupta is a PhD Candidate and Adjunct Instructor at the School of International Service (SIS), American University. She has worked as RIPIL Program Manager since January 2025. Shagun’s substantive research focuses on public trust in institutions, with an emphasis on trust in local government institutions among residents of unauthorized colonies (a type of informal settlement) in Delhi, India. She uses ethnographic and survey methods to investigate the persistence of trust in there institutions despite low government service provision.
Prior to academia, she lived and worked in Myanmar (Burma) and Thailand, where her research focused on financial inclusion, gender, and migration. She professional experience with program design, monitoring and evaluation and conflict sensitivity analyses for development projects managed by large international organizations, including the United Nations.
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Lindsay Barclay
Lindsay Kurlak Barclay is a Senior Research Fellow at RIPIL and Project Manager for the State Department SEAL Partnership, and Translating Research into Action Center. She is also a PhD candidate in International Relations at American University’s School of International Service, where her research focuses on state-building, post-war transitions, political geography, and political violence.
Prior to academia, she was an international development specialist, managing USAID-funded programs focused on conflict mitigation and democratic governance in conflict-affected countries. She also served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco and has conducted fieldwork in Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Morocco.
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Madeline Faye Fleishman
Dr. Madeline Faye Fleishman is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the National Security Data and Policy Institute at the University of Virginia. She received her PhD in Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also a Project Manager for Networks of Influence and Support between War and Peace and Research Fellow at RIPIL. Her research primarily focuses on civil conflict, specifically cooperation in conflict management by international organizations.
She is currently working on different projects studying the networks of aid in various conflict contexts. Her work has appeared in Conflict Management and Peace Science, the Journal of Peace Research, and in the Monkey Cage Blog. She previously worked as an Adjunct Researcher at RAND Corporation.
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Cecilia Cavero-Sanchez
Cecilia Cavero-Sanchez is a Dual Title Ph.D. student in International Relations and Social Data Analytics at the Department of Political Science at Penn State. She is also a Project Manager for Networks of Influence and Support between War and Peace and Research Fellow at RIPIL. Her academic interests center around peacebuilding, dispute management, and post-conflict reconstruction. She graduated with a double B.A. in International Studies and Political Science at Carlos III University of Madrid. She also holds a Master of Research in International Relations from the University of Essex and a Master of Arts from Penn State.
Before her graduate studies, she was a writer for the Berkeley Review of International Conflict and Security, interned for the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and interned as an Intelligence Analyst at the Cyber Counter-Threat Intelligence team at Deloitte.
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