Dr. Aaron Abbarno is a Director, Social and Behavioral Science at Democracy International. Previously, he served as a Democracy Fellow in Comparative Politics and Democratization for the Learning Division in USAID’s Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) Center. Dr. Abbarno has expertise in population-based surveys and survey experiments, field experiments, and non-experimental observational research. He supported the DRG Center and USAID field missions by identifying, planning, and realizing advanced monitoring and evaluation activities. He additionally trained USAID Foreign Service Officers in research methodology to promote the use of social science evidence in designing foreign assistance programs. Dr. Abbarno has served as Principal Investigator on impact evaluations of democracy assistance programs and has designed evaluations in more than 10 countries.

Dr. Abbarno holds a Ph. D. in political science from the University of Pittsburgh. He is proficient in Spanish, French, Italian, and Slovenian.