Christopher Fariss is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and Faculty Associate in the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan. He is also an Affiliated Scholar at the Security and Political Economy (SPEC) Lab at the University of Southern California. From 2013 to 2016, he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Penn State University. In June 2013, he graduated with a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, San Diego. He also studied at the University of North Texas, where he graduated with an M.S. in political science (2007), a B.F.A in drawing and painting (2005), and a B.A. in political science (2005).
His core research focuses on the politics and measurement of human rights, discrimination, violence, and repression. He uses computational methods to understand why governments around the world torture, maim, and kill individuals within their jurisdiction and the processes monitors use to observe and document these abuses. Other projects cover a broad array of themes but share a focus on computationally intensive methods and research design. These methodological tools, essential for analyzing data at massive scale, open up new insights into the micro-foundations of state repression and the politics of measurement.