Welcome
I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Immigration Policy Lab at Stanford University . I am supporting the Lab’s Migration and Development Initiative to better understand and find policy solutions for the challenges of displaced persons in developing countries.
In my research, I explore how households make decisions to move or flee under high risks like conflict, poverty and climate-induced stress. I am particularly interested in questions such as: how do civilians make the choice to flee, how do governments and other actors respond to displacement on the local level, how can we predict (forced) migration in light of changing conflict patterns and development challenges, and what impact does human mobility have on societies in the Global South? I predominantly use quantitative methods - spatial statistics, machine learning but also survey experiments and randomized control trials - in my work. I have conducted several surveys in the context of Iraq, Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Beyond my research agenda on forced migration, I am interested in conflict dynamics, refugee policies, statelessness, and civilian resilience in fragile settings.
I have received a PhD in Political Science at the Department of Political Science , University College London (UCL) in 2023. I have previously worked as consultant for the World Bank-UNHCR Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement . I completed a MSc in Security Studies at UCL and a BA in Politics and Public Administration at the University of Konstanz, Germany. You can contact me at sigweber@stanford.edu. My CV can be downloaded here .