The American Political Science Association is pleased to announce the Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (DDRIG) Awardees for 2020. The APSA DDRIG program provides support to enhance and improve the conduct of doctoral dissertation research in political science. Awards support basic research which is theoretically derived and empirically oriented.
Safa al-Saeedi, Northwestern University
Safa al-Saeedi is a PhD candidate in political science at Northwestern University. Her dissertation focuses on media changes and ideological conflict in authoritarian politics. Namely, it examines how the Internet has affected the power balance among ideological elites in Saudi Arabia. It is based on primarily original large-scale data from traditional as well as digital media, using a range of methods including text-as-data and machine learning. Her research has been supported by the National Foundation of Science, the American Political Science Association, the Institute for Humane Studies, and the Northwestern Graduate School, among others. She received her BA, with distinction, from Duke University and her MA from Northwestern University’s Political Science Department.