Dr. Seim is a scholar of comparative politics, focusing on the political economy of development. Her research examines the relationship between citizens and political officials, with a particular emphasis on corruption in developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa. She is particularly interested in two related but distinct threads of research: one considers how accountability mechanisms can be perverted and corruption can emerge when institutions are weak or states are developing; and the other considers the methods and data used to study corruption and accountability around the world. To conduct this research, she partners with government institutions, international organizations, and policy makers, as well as other academics.
Methodologically, she utilizes various tools in her work, including interviews, text analysis, observational data, and experiments (RCTs, lab-in-the-field, conjoint, and behavioral experiments). She obtained her PhD in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego in 2014. For the 2014-2015 academic year, she was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project. In 2015, she joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Policy, Peter Thacher Grauer Fellow, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Global Studies, and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Political Science.
