Ellen Lust joined the Einaudi Center as director in January 2025. She is Einaudi's John S. Knight Professor of International Studies and a professor in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and Department of Government (College of Arts and Sciences) and University of Gothenburg Department of Political Science. 

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Lust's research examines the role of social institutions and local authorities in governance, particularly in Southwest Asia and North Africa. She has conducted fieldwork and surveys in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Malawi, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, and Zambia and authored numerous books and articles. Her most recent book is an edited volume, Decentralization Local Governance, and Inequality in the Middle East and North Africa (University of Michigan Press, 2025), coedited with Kristen Kao (University of Gothenburg).

Lust is the founding director of the Governance and Local Development Institute, established at Yale University in 2013 and currently based at Cornell's Brooks School and the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. She is also a senior fellow at Alternative Policy Solutions at the American University in Cairo. 

She has served as an advisor and consultant to organizations including the World Bank, United Nations Development Fund, and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The Carnegie Corporation of New York, National Science Foundation, Social Science Research Council, Swedish Research Council, and Hicham Alaoui Foundation have supported her work. 

“Building Global Understanding”

“International studies at Cornell and nationwide have never been more important,” says Einaudi director Ellen Lust. Explore top headlines about faculty and grad research and apply for this year's faculty funding by March 16. Read the Spring 2026 Einaudi Center News.

Recent Publications

• American Political Science Review: Female representation and legitimacy: Evidence from a harmonized experiment in Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia
• American Political Science Review: Land and legibility: When do citizens expect secure property rights in weak states?
• American Journal of Political Science: Is authority fungible? Legitimacy, domain congruence, and the limits of power in Africa