Galo Mayorga is a Ph.D student in political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is interested in studying political and criminal violence, the  state and criminality, and state building. He has conducted  research on the causes and consequences of violence. He holds an MPA  from Harvard University. Prior to UC Santa Barbara, he had several roles, including  research assistant at the Harvard Ash Center, international consultant at the United Nations, and policy advisor in Southeast Asia. Before that he worked on public sector reform and development in Latin America.