Malia Sayad is a Predoctoral Research Specialist with the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project. She holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As an undergraduate, she was a research assistant to Professor John A. Vasquez where she studied peace theory, deterrence, and the causes of war. 

Prior to joining ESOC, she interned at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism and worked as a recruiter at Amazon. Her current research interests include conflict, misinformation, and political extremism.