Inquisitive. Epistemological humility. Interdisciplinary. These three words best describe my research approach. Motivated by the unknown, I have dedicated my graduate and professional career to advancing my computational skill set to better understand the socio-political dynamics from an empirical perspective.
I’m a computational social scientist in training and a Ph.D. candidate in Security Studies at the School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs at the University of Central Florida. I explore non-traditional security threats from a comparative lens. I’m particularly interested in how infectious disease outbreaks can impact socio-political behaviors and influence individuals to engage in politically-motivated armed violence. I rely heavily on geographic information systems, advanced statistical analysis, survey research design, (interactive) data visualization, and epidemic simulation modeling to help gain a better understanding of politically-motivated violent behaviors, in tandem with novel and reemerging infectious disease diffusion processes.
My dissertation focuses on three interrelated topics in public health security:
- To what extent does civil violence affect the transmission of HIV?
- To what extent does Ebola affect the frequency of civil violence?
- To what extent do communal network configurations and levels of civil violence affect the transmission of Ebola/HIV? (Epidemic simulation modeling).
Contact: See CV.
Devyn Escalanti 