Allison Verrilli

Welcome! My name is Allie Verrilli (she/her) and I am a Postdoctoral Fellow in Public Policy and Government at the Colby College. I received my PhD in Government from the University of Texas at Austin in 2026.

My research centers on the politics of spatial inequality with a particular focus on local politics, gentrification, race, housing, and policing. In my dissertation, Unequal Ground: Gentrifiers and the Local Politics of Privilege, I examine under what conditions gentrification influences local political behavior. I argue that gentrifiers’ dissatisfaction with neighborhood conditions and belief in future development motivates political engagement and distinct political attitudes. This engagement, in turn, shapes politics and policy with consequences for local governance and communities.

Other projects investigate how socio-geographic boundaries shape policing and the relationship between perceptions of crime and political behavior. I work with large-scale administrative records, geospatial data, survey experiments, and causal inference techniques. My work has been supported by the NSF/APSA Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant and has been published in Urban Affairs Review and Perspectives on Politics.

Prior to graduate school, I received my B.A. in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame. I then worked as a paralegal at a civil rights law firm in Washington, D.C.