Melina Raquel Platas

I am an Assistant Professor of Political Science at New York University Abu Dhabi. I study the politics of development, organized around four themes: 1) culture and development, 2) information, accountability, and service delivery, 3) migration, and 4) climate and environment. My book, Culture and Mass Schooling: The Colonial Roots of Educational Inequality in Africa (under contract at Cambridge University Press), employs a mixed-methods strategy to identify the historical institutions that led to the Muslim-Christian schooling gap and develop a cultural theory for why it persists. I employ a variety of methods, ranging from field experiments to ethnography. The regional focus of my research is sub-Saharan Africa, where I have worked and conducted fieldwork in eight countries since 2005.