Titles of Honorary Professor and Honorary Professors of Practice are awarded to recognise and reward the contribution of these individuals to teaching, research and input through professional standing, to Queen’s University Belfast.

Melani is a Professor of Government (political science) and the Director of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. Her work centers on identity politics, intergroup relations, and development, and many of her current research projects explore the nexus between politicized identity-based conflict and socioeconomic factors.  

Melani’s research focuses on Northern Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Lebanon and aims to compare the nature of relations across different subnational localities.

Her work centers on identity politics, intergroup relations, and development, and many of her current research projects explore the nexus between politicized identity-based conflict and socioeconomic factors. Read more here.

In addition to Northern Ireland, she is working in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Lebanon, where she has previously conducted extensive research, to compare the nature of relations across different subnational localities. The goal of the project is to move beyond tests of the “contact hypothesis” in order to explore the local and supra-local socioeconomic and political factors that explain why some places exhibit more extensive and collaborative patterns of intergroup relations while other are or remain more polarized.

The research is based on a mixed methods design, which entails qualitative and quantitative data collection through in-depth interviews with local elites, survey research in a representative sample of wards and constituencies in Northern Ireland, and analyses of archival and secondary sources.

Melani is currently working on a new book which focuses on local-level intergroup relations after conflict.

Commenting on the appointment, Mitchell Institute Director Professor Richard English said:

'It's excellent that Professor Melani Cammett is joining the Mitchell Institute as an Honorary Professor. Melani has already visited and spoken at the Institute, and her expertise and research interests align strongly with our work here at Queen's. It's exciting that she is joining us, and we look forward to working with her.'