Jason Lyall is the inaugural James Wright Chair of Transnational Studies and Associate Professor in the Government department. He also directs the Political Violence FieldLab at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding. His research examines the effects and effectiveness of political violence in civil and conventional wars. He is currently writing a book on the lessons learned from the American war in Afghanistan (under contract with Princeton University Press). He is also writing a Carnegie-funded book on how to improve humanitarian assistance in fragile and conflict settings like Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen. A third project investigates the relationship between inequality, racism, and intergroup relations in violent settings, including within police forces, armies, and rebel organizations.
His book, Divided Armies: Inequality and Battlefield Performance in Modern War (Princeton University Press, 2020), was awarded the 2022 APSA Conflict Processes Section Best Book Award, the 2021 Peter Katzenstein Book Prize, the 2020 Joseph Lepgold Prize, the 2020 Edgar S. Furniss Book Prize, and was named a "Best of 2020" book by Foreign Affairs. His research has been published in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Politics, JRSS: Series B, and World Politics, among others. He has received funding from AidData/USAID, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the MacArthur Foundation, the Folke Bernadotte Academy, and the United States Institute of Peace. He has conducted fieldwork in Russia and Afghanistan, where he served as the Technical Adviser for USAID's Measuring the Impact of Stabilization Initiatives (MISTI) project during 2012-15. He was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow in 2020. He was also awarded the Dean of Faculty Award for Outstanding Mentoring and Advising in 2023. He previously taught at Yale and Princeton, where he was awarded the Stanley Kelly, Jr., Teaching Award.