Adam Lichtenheld

I am a Senior Advisor and former Executive Director of the Immigration Policy Lab at Stanford University and an Affiliated Scholar at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University. I have worked with governments, donors, and NGOs around the world to design and evaluate policies and programs on migration and displacement, socio-economic development, violence prevention, conflict resolution, and governance. I am the author of Guilt by Location: Forced Displacement and Population Sorting in Civil Wars, a finalist for the 2025 Conflict Research Society Book of the Year. My research, analysis, and commentary has appeared in a number of academic and policy journals, along with the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, NBC News, Just Security, and the Conversation. I have also taught university courses on forced migration and conflict, trained development practitioners on research and evaluation, and lectured at the Institute for Security Governance at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.

I received my Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. Previously, I was Senior Researcher at Mercy Corps and a Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University. I have also worked as a consultant for UNHCR, the World Bank, the Danish Refugee Council, Refugees International, and USAID; reported for National Geographic in Jordan; and managed USAID-funded stabilization and political transition programs in Afghanistan, Libya, and Pakistan.

Ein Issa Displacement Camp, Raqqa, Syria