Victoria Puglia is currently reading for the MPhil in International Relations. Her research interests include refugee livelihoods and refugee camp-building; the intersection of conflict, food insecurity, and forced migration; sustainable development; structural inequality; and global justice. Regionally she is interested in East Africa, focusing her work on Uganda and South Sudan. For her MPhil thesis, she will be conducting a quantitative examination of the interaction between conflict and food insecurity as drivers of forced migration across sub-Saharan Africa.
Prior to beginning the MPhil, Victoria completed a BA in International Affairs as a Marquis Scholar at Lafayette College. She had a regional focus on sub-Saharan Africa and a thematic focus on conflict and cooperation, development, and environmentalism. Her undergraduate honors thesis focused on the intersection of food insecurity and conflict as drivers of forced migration across sub-Saharan Africa. She also spent half a year in Uganda, culminating in a field research project examining the effects of unstable food aid on socio-economic structures of refugee settlements in Adjumani, Uganda. Other significant research projects include an examination of the role of disarmament campaigns on ongoing violence in South Sudan, and a geospatial analysis exploring the factors that contribute to general acute malnutrition in refugee settlements across sub-Saharan Africa. She graduated Summa Cum Laude and is currently studying at Oxford as a US Rhodes Scholar.
