Nicole M. Daphnis, PhD

I am a political scientist and Lecturer at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. My research interests include authoritarianism, protest and activism, political migration, and legal consciousness, with a focus on Russia and the post-Soviet region.

My book manuscript, tentatively titled Varieties of Exile: Russian Activism and Emigration during the War in Ukraine, shows how Russian political migrants struggle against an oppressive political regime from abroad, often in precarious conditions, and understand their own political agency in the post-Soviet periphery, spaces still grappling with the impacts of Russian and Soviet imperialism. Fieldwork for this project was funded by the American Councils Title VIII Research Scholar Program.

My research on single picketing in Russia has been published in Post-Soviet Affairs.

I received my PhD in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2025.