Lauren Pinson is an assistant professor in the University of Texas at Dallas's School of Economic, Political, and Policy Sciences. Previously, she was a post-doctoral fellow at University of Pennsylvania's Perry World House, working with Beth Simmons's Borders and Boundaries in World Politics group. She received her PhD in Political Science from Yale University in May 2020. Her primary research focuses on the governance of cross-border trafficking, particularly of drugs and small arms. Her book project, Money or Blood? Why States Allow Illicit Economies, considers why governments allow illicit markets within and across their borders and when international pressure alters domestic strategies. Pinson uses quantitative analysis of original data, qualitative interviews with decision makers, and survey experiments as empirical support.
Her broader work focuses on the politics of cross-border issues including illicit trafficking, counter trafficking aid, border security, and migration. She has published collaborative side projects in journals including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) and Political Analysis. Her research interests include security, political economy, non-state violence, and survey and field experiments.
Pinson has been a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellow, an ISPS Graduate Policy Fellow, a PEO Scholar, and a Frank M. Patterson Fellow. NSF’s Graduate Research Opportunities Worldwide, the Research Council of Norway, the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO), and the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale have supported her research. During 2017 and 2018, she was a visiting researcher at PRIO and a visiting junior fellow at The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. She has conducted fieldwork in Mexico, Jamaica, Grenada, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Solomon Islands.
Prior to starting at Yale, Pinson worked as a senior researcher and project manager at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). She earned her BA in International Affairs and MPA focused in public policy analysis from the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia.
Her broader work focuses on the politics of cross-border issues including illicit trafficking, counter trafficking aid, border security, and migration. She has published collaborative side projects in journals including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) and Political Analysis. Her research interests include security, political economy, non-state violence, and survey and field experiments.
Pinson has been a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellow, an ISPS Graduate Policy Fellow, a PEO Scholar, and a Frank M. Patterson Fellow. NSF’s Graduate Research Opportunities Worldwide, the Research Council of Norway, the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO), and the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale have supported her research. During 2017 and 2018, she was a visiting researcher at PRIO and a visiting junior fellow at The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. She has conducted fieldwork in Mexico, Jamaica, Grenada, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Solomon Islands.
Prior to starting at Yale, Pinson worked as a senior researcher and project manager at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). She earned her BA in International Affairs and MPA focused in public policy analysis from the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia.