Researching the connections between infrastructure, peacebuilding, environmental change, and urban resilience.
Assistant Professor at George Mason University and author of Peace Infrastructures (MIT Press, 2026).
featured book
How UN Peace Operations Build Roads, Bridges, and Solar Farms in the Pursuit of Sustainability
MIT Press, 2026
The first comprehensive account of infrastructure building in United Nations peace operations, examining how roads, bridges, energy systems, and other public works have become part of contemporary peacebuilding efforts.
Peace Infrastructures examines how UN peace operations build roads, bridges, power systems, and other infrastructure in pursuit of sustainability, resilience, and peacebuilding.
current research
I research how infrastructure shapes peacebuilding, environmental change, and urban life in conflict-affected settings. My work focuses on infrastructure planning, resilience, reconstruction, and sustainability in contexts of conflict and disaster.
selected publications
- 2025. Post-military futures: Plans and failure of the peace operations’ infrastructure handover in Darfur’, Journal for Statebuilding and Intervention. https://doi.org/10.1080/17502977.2025.2480153
- 2023. ‘Peacekeeping’s conflict urbanism: A decade of urban change in Mali.’ Peacebuilding 11(4), 446-462.
- 2022. ‘The infrastructure of peace: Civil-military urban planning in Mali.’ International Peacekeeping 29(1), 115-138.
- 2020. ‘Conflict Urbanism: Reflections on the Role of Conflict and Peacebuilding in Post-Apartheid Johannesburg.’ Peacebuilding 8(4), 447–59.
get in touch
For research collaborations, speaking engagements, media inquiries, or student supervision, please get in touch.
sdaniela @ gmu.edu | GoogleScholar | ORCID