THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Maya is a 2025-26 Postdoctoral Fellow in international security at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 2025.
Maya specializes in international relations (IR) and comparative politics with an emphasis on international security, global governance, and policing. Her dissertation and book project, “Reforming Policing, Reproducing Power: The Global Governance of Domestic Policing,” explores the parameters of international norms for policing. Putting critical policing studies in anthropology, sociology, and history into conversation with IR, the dissertation argues that there is a decoupling between international policing standards and the actual policies and practices of reforms, particularly in post-conflict states outside of the West.
Outside of her book project, her research combines critical and mainstream approaches to explore conflict dynamics and state-building. Her research has been published in outlets including International Organization, Politics, Religion, and Ideology, and Democracy and Security.