Elizabeth R. Nugent is an assistant professor of political science at Yale University. Her research focuses on the politics of authoritarianism, political psychology, and the Middle East. Her book, After Repression: How Polarization Derails Democratic Transition, is available through Princeton University Press. She received her doctorate in politics from Princeton University and was previously a postdoctoral research fellow with the Middle East Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School of Government's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.  She also holds a B.A. in Arabic and an M.A. in Arab Studies, both from Georgetown University.

At Yale, she is affiliated with the MacMillan Center, the Council on Middle East Studies, the Political Violence and its Legacies Workshop, and Pierson College, and she runs a monthly research group for doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows working on Middle East politics.