Professor Dr. Christopher Fariss

Biography

Christopher Fariss is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego in June 2013. Prior to his current appointment, he was an Early Career Professor at Penn State University. His core research interests include the politics of human rights, violence, and repression. Fariss employs computational methods to analyze how governments choose to torture and kill individuals within their jurisdictions. His projects span topics from foreign aid to American voting behavior, with a strong emphasis on computational research methods and data analysis. Fariss argues that methodological tools are essential for analyzing 'big data', contributing to new insights into the micro-foundations of state repression. His extensive research work is accessible through various publications and working papers, as well as teaching materials hosted on data archives like Dataverse, where replication data and human rights data from various measurement projects are made available.

Research Interests