Education: Ph.D., University of California-Berkeley, 2009; M.A., University of California-Berkeley, 1999; M.A., Stanford University, 1998; B.A., University of California-Santa Cruz, 1992.
Naomi Levy’s research centers on the relationships between ordinary citizens and the state, with a particular focus on post-conflict societies. She employs community-based participatory methods to understand how the state can legitimize itself vis-à-vis the people and what might interrupt this process. With her work, she seeks to facilitate government responsiveness to community needs by amplifying the voices that are best placed to guide public servants.
She is a faculty affiliate at the Possibility Lab at UC Berkeley, a member of the board of directors of the Everyday Peace Indicators NGO, a certified workshop facilitator with the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity, and is the Director of SCU’s Office of Student Fellowships.
Levy received her PhD from the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, and also holds an MA in Social Sciences of Education from Stanford University School of Education. Her scholarship has been published in a broad range of academic journals, and she has received funding for her work from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Minerva Initiative, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the California Community Foundation / California 100 Initiative.
- Political Science Research
- Applied Quantitative Methods
- Identity Politics in Comparative Perspective
- Political Psychology
- Levy, N., Lerman, A.E., & Dixon, P. (2023). Reimagining Public Safety: Defining “Community” in Participatory Research. Law and Social Inquiry, 1-22.
- Levy, N., Lerman, A.E., & Skeem, J. (2023). Participatory Methods for Evaluating New Approaches to Mental Health Crisis Response. Report to Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, May 19, 2023.
- Levy, N., & Firchow, P. (2021). Measuring Peace from the Bottom Up with the Pasto Indigenous Group in Nariño, Colombia. PS: Political Science & Politics, 54(3), 558-564.
- Berg, L. A., & Levy, N. (2020). When aid builds states: party dominance and the effects of foreign aid on tax collection after civil war. International Interactions, 46(3), 454-480.
- Barma, N. H., Levy, N., & Piombo, J. (2020). The impact of aid dynamics on state effectiveness and legitimacy. Studies in Comparative International Development, 55, 184-203.
- Barma, N. H., Levy, N., & Piombo, J. (2017). Disentangling aid dynamics in statebuilding and peacebuilding: a causal framework. International Peacekeeping, 24(2), 187-211.