Our Team

Rachel Beatty Riedl

Peggy J. Koenig '78 Director of the Cornell Center on Democracy

Rachel Beatty Riedl's research expertise is on democracy and authoritarianism globally, and particularly across Africa. She focuses on questions of participation, institutions, political parties, and local governance. Riedl serves as the Peggy J. Koenig '78 Director of the Cornell Center on Democracy in the Brooks School of Public Policy and Professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University.

Paul Friesen

Research Associate

Paul is a Research Associate at the Cornell Center on Democracy at Cornell University. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame and is a former Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. His research and teaching interests include democracy in the global context as well as elections, political parties, and political behavior in Sub-Saharan Africa. His book project, Dual Democracy, builds a theory of democratic community inspired by indigenous governance models.

Esam Boraey

Project Manager

Project Manager at the Cornell Center on Democracy at Cornell University and a Ph.D. student in Comparative Politics and Political Economy. His work focuses on building bridges between academia and practice to advance democracy and combat democratic backsliding worldwide. Esam brings more than a decade of experience in democratization, international development, and human rights, having worked with leading global organizations, political institutions, and grassroots movements across the Middle East and the United States. He has served in senior roles with USAID, the United States Institute of Peace, and international civil society initiatives, and has managed and advised numerous political campaigns at the state and national levels in the U.S. His academic research examines the intersection of authoritarianism, political economy, and social movements in the Middle East, with a particular focus on how governance structures and civic engagement shape democratic outcomes.

Marian Vidaurri

Research Associate

Marian leads the civic education and engagement programs at the Cornell Center on Democracy. She is an alum of Cornell (BA Economics and Government), University of Oxford (MSc in Latin American Studies), University of Pennsylvania (Master of Public Administration), and SAIS Johns Hopkins University (Doctor of International Affairs). As a practitioner and scholar in democracy, multilateralism, politics, and Latin American and Caribbean studies, her research interests currently focus on the role of diplomacy and multilateralism in promoting and defending democracy, on international mediation and negotiations, on democracy renewal in Latin America, and on emerging models of democratic civic education and engagement. Her book "Venezuelan Negotiations: From Deadlock to Collapse (2014-2024)", published by Springer (forthcoming March 2026), discusses why negotiation processes failed to resolve the Venezuelan crisis, and proposes an analytical framework to explain the intractability of contemporary conflicts.

Thomas E. Garrett

Distinguished Global Democracy Lecturer at the Brooks School and Einaudi Center Lund Practitioner in Residence

Thomas E. Garrett is the Distinguished Global Democracy Practitioner in Residence at the Brooks School and the Einaudi Center Lund Practitioner in Residence, having recently completed a seven-year term as Secretary General of the Communities of Democracy, a global intergovernmental coalition founded in 2000 through the adoption of the Warsaw Declaration. Mr. Garrett previously spent three decades at the International Republican Institute (IRI), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that supports democracy, civil society, women and youth political empowerment, and democratic governance in more than 80 countries, rising to become the organization's vice president.

Meleah Grover

Administrative Support