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Austin Wright

Assistant Professor, University of Chicago

Headshot for Austin Wright

Austin Wright is an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. His research on substate conflict largely focuses on the political economy of insurgent violence, examining how rebel groups adopt new technologies of war to undermine state rivals. He also studies the political economy of crime and corruption. Wright’s work is supported by the Becker Friedman Institute, National Science Foundation, and Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts. Wright is a faculty affiliate of the Pearson Institute and Empirical Studies of Conflict Project.

At the Harris School, Wright primarily teaches in the applied statistics core, with a focus on using causal inference tools to better understand public policy interventions. He has received several awards, including the 2017 Junior Faculty of the Year Award at Harris and the 2015 George Kateb Prize for Best Preceptor in Politics at Princeton University. Wright received his BA and BS from the University of Texas at Austin and his PhD from Princeton University. Before attending graduate school, he served as a Teach For America corps member in New Orleans, Louisiana where he taught mathematics.