Welcome!

I'm Laura Howells, a PhD Candidate in Politics at Princeton University. I am a recipient of the Prize Fellowship in Social Sciences. 

My research focuses broadly on the attitudinal and behavioral ramifications of nation- and state-building policy. I also write on issues of authoritarianism, particularly in Russia.  

My dissertation project concerns how the state, majority, and minority individuals negotiate the process of nation-building, with Estonia's ongoing monolingual education reform at the core. This project brings together causal identification with quantitative and qualitative description and draws on extended fieldwork. Get in touch here for the working paper or simply to discuss the project in more detail.

I hold an M.A. from Princeton and a dual B.A. (summa cum laude) from Bowdoin College in Comparative Politics and Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. Prior to Princeton, I conducted research in Estonia on a Fulbright scholarship and interned at The Moscow Times, one of Russia's few remaining independent news outlets.