Brendan is a PhD candidate in the Department of Government, specializing in political economy of development. His research and teaching interests include economic history, state-building, state capacity, and the history of representative institutions, with a regional focus on Russia and Eurasia. His work primarily relies on historical data drawn from archival research.Before coming to Harvard, He received my BA in Political Science and Russian Studies, summa cum laude, from Georgetown University, and a MA from Georgetown's Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies. He is also a graduate student associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and a doctoral fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and  associate research fellow of the International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development based at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.