Rachel M Gisselquist

Rachel M. Gisselquist is Professor in Governance and Development and Director of the Governance and Social Development Resource Centre (GSDRC) at the University of Birmingham. Before joining Birmingham in September 2024, she was a Senior Research Fellow with the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) in Helsinki. She holds a PhD in political science from MIT and has over two decades of experience in academia, applied policy research, and the leadership of international research projects.

Her research focuses on inequality, state capacity, aid and development cooperation, governance and democracy, and ethnic and identity politics. Her recent books include Dimensions of Inequality: Impacts on Growth, Governance, and Human Development (Bloomsbury, 2026, with I. Ferreira and F. Tarp); Fragile Aid: Development Cooperation in Weak States and Conflict Contexts (Oxford University Press, 2025, edited with P. Justino and A. Vaccaro); and How States Respond to Crisis: Pandemic Governance across the Global South (Oxford University Press, 2025, edited with A. Vaccaro). She has published widely in leading journals, including World Development, International Studies Review, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Journal of Development Studies, Journal of International Development, and Social Indicators Research. From 2007 to 2009, she co-authored the first editions of the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, now a standard reference on governance.