Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner joins the Woodrow Wilson Department of Political Science beginning in the Fall 2016 semester. She comes to the University from Boston College as an Assistant Professor, and from the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies as an Academy Scholar. Her research focuses on citizen-state relations, local governance, and social welfare in developing countries, with a regional focus on India. She has also conducted research in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa.

Starting in Spring 2017 Kruks-Wisner will teach undergraduate classes about local politics, governance, and the study of political participation at the grass roots level. Being new to the University, Charlottesville, and Virginia, she will update her lessons based on our own communities and organizations, making her classes contemporary and applicable to current events.

“Gabi’s expertise in the politics of India adds to existing strengths across the College; her ability to teach a variety of classes means that students in Politics and in Global Studies will have an opportunity to learn from someone who has spent substantial time in the field.”

—David Leblang

Kruks-Wisner’s field research in Rajasthan, India draws from a massive survey of 2210 households and as 500 interviews in 105 villages. Her book manuscript based on this research, Active Citizenship: Claim-Making & the Pursuit of Social Welfare in Rural India is currently under review. The research is a toolbox for citizen-scholars helping at a pragmatic level, useful to policy makers, grass roots orgs, and other political scientists in an international setting. Kruks-Wisner asks: How can governments better serve and be more accountable to citizens? How can citizens actively and effectively engage the state? Who participates in politics, how, and to what ends?

Kruks-Wisner also will be teaching Global Studies, an interdisciplinary major at UVA.

Kruks-Wisner has a Ph.D. in Political Science and Masters in International Development & Regional Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a B.A. in Sociology/Anthropology from Swarthmore College.