Uniting
Research and Policy

Jennifer Murtazashvili is Associate Professor and Director of the International Development Program at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan (Cambridge University Press, 2016). Her research focuses on  informal institutions, local governance, public administration, property rights, and political reform in both conflict-affected and authoritarian environments and relies on multiple types of data she has collected during almost a decade of field research across Central Eurasia, including ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, public opinion surveys, field experiments, focus group discussions, and archival work. In addition to her academic work, she has extensive experience in the policy world having served as a Democracy and Governance Specialist for the United States Agency for International Development in Uzbekistan, a US Peace Corps Volunteer, and an advisor to The World Bank, US Department of Defense,  United Nations Development Program, and several non-profit groups.