Sara Daub

DAAD Postdoctoral Fellow

Biography

Dr. Sara Daub is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).  Her position is based at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs and is supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with funding from the German Federal Foreign Office. She is also a Research Fellow at the Hertie School’s Centre for International Security in Berlin. 

Sara’s research focuses on international relations, specializing in conflict and migration studies. She employs quantitative and mixed-method approaches to study non-state actors' behavior, internationalized civil wars, diaspora politics, rebel governance, foreign aid, and foreign policy preferences. Currently, Sara investigates how external actors impact conflict dynamics and civilian victimization, as well as diaspora preferences regarding dimensions of foreign policy. Her primary research project during the fellowship is titled Political support for militant Groups: Threat or chance for world order?

Sara obtained her PhD in Political Science from the Hertie School in 2024. Her dissertation examines the causes and consequences of diaspora sponsorship for rebel organizations. During her PhD, Sara completed a six-month Fulbright research stay at the Department of Government and Politics and the Center for International Development and Conflict Management at the University of Maryland, College Park. In 2022, she was a DAAD-funded visiting researcher at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University and a Civil Wars Paths fellow at the Centre for the Comparative Study of Civil War at the University of York.  Sara received a Master’s degree in Development Studies specializing in Economics from the University of Passau (2019) and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Political Science from the University of Goettingen (2017).