Kamya Yadav

I am an incoming Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI) at the University of Pennsylvania. I received my Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. My research sits at the intersection of gender and representation, party politics, and the political economy of development, with a regional focus on India.

My work examines how political institutions — such as quotas and party organizations — shape women's political participation, ambition, and representation, as well as citizen engagement with politics. This research spans India, Zambia, Malawi, and the United States, and draws on surveys, experiments, observational causal inference, and qualitative interviews and shadowing. My research has been supported by Global, International and Area Studies, the Institute for South Asia Studies, and the Graduate Division at UC Berkeley, as well as SurveyCTO.

My book project, The Political Glass Wall: How Women's Wings Prevent Women's Political Advancement, introduces the concept of the political glass wall to explain why women's wings — present in nearly 40 percent of political parties — fail to advance women's political careers. Drawing on over 56 elite interviews and an original survey of 1,054 party elites in two of India's largest parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Aam Aadmi Party, I show that ostensibly gender-egalitarian institutions can institutionalize discrimination by creating parallel, unequal career tracks.

Previously, I worked and published on the information environment and misinformation as a research analyst at Graphika and a researcher for the Information Environment Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. I was also a Senior Data Science Fellow at the D-Lab at UC Berkeley. I hold a B.A. in Politics from Princeton University and an M.A. in Political Science from UC Berkeley.

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Articles

• Siwakoti, Samikshya, Kamya Yadav, Nicola Bariletto, Luca Zanotti, Ulaş Erdoğdu, and Jacob N. Shapiro. 2021. "How COVID Drove the Evolution of Fact-Checking." Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review. Access.

Book Chapters

• Yadav, Kamya, Alicia Wanless, and Samantha Lai. 2025. "Multilateral Efforts on Information Integrity: Why a Clearer Definition Is Needed." In Springer Handbook on Disinformation: A Multidisciplinary Analysis. Access.

Other Articles

• Siwakoti, Samikshya, Kamya Yadav, Isra Thange, Nicola Bariletto, Luca Zanotti, Alaa Ghoneim, and Jacob N. Shapiro. 2021. "Localized Misinformation in a Global Pandemic: Report on COVID-19 Narratives Around the World." Empirical Studies of Conflict, Princeton University. Access.
• Yadav, Kamya, Ulaş Erdoğdu, Samikshya Siwakoti, Jacob N. Shapiro, and Alicia Wanless. 2021. "Countries Have More Than 100 Laws on the Books to Combat Misinformation. How Well Do They Work?" Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Access.

Working Papers

• Kinship and Women's Collective Efficacy in Malawi With Amanda Robinson, Amanda Clayton, Boniface Dulani, and Asiyati Cheweza
• The Limits of Intra-Party Competition for Women's Political Representation With Priyadarshi Amar, Anirvan Chowdhury, and Varun Karekurve-Ramachandra
• When Gatekeepers Open the Gates: Internal Party Quotas as Reputation-Building Strategies
• "It's My Duty": How Social Norms Influence Peer-to-Peer Correction of False Claims Online With Rachel Xu  ·  Pre-analysis plan

Works in Progress

• Unlocking Urban Democracy: Voter Engagement in Local-Level Zambian Politics With Leonardo Arriola, Nicholas Dorward, and Melanie Phillips  ·  Pre-analysis plan
• Gatekeepers of Representation: The Role of Candidate Training Programs on Minority Candidate Supply With Diana Da In Lee