Zuheir Desai is a political scientist who received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Rochester in 2020. He studies electoral competition and political accountability. His work spans both theoretical models of elections, voting, and policymaking, as well as empirical applications of these models on developing democracies such as Brazil and India. Prior to joining the faculty at OSU, he was an Assistant Professor in the School of Global and Public Affairs at IE University from 2021-2023, and a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Politics at Princeton University in 2020-21.