BIOGRAPHY

Natasha Patel earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University in 2026. Her work theorizes about social movements, especially those that seek to address deep, structural causes of contemporary problems. In her case examples, Hawaiian Sovereignty, Prison Industrial Complex Abolition, and Christian Dominionism, she asks: “why do some movements that seek vast structural change ask their members to undergo a highly localized politics of personal transformation?” The research reveals why some “highly aspirational” political movements theorize a strong connection between structural transformation and personal transformation, and encourages us to consider how personal practices are socially transformative.

Her research has been supported by the American Political Science Association, the Fulbright-Nehru Student Research Award, Stanford Unviersity's Vice Provost for Graduate Education, and the Stanford Hume Humanities Center amongst other sources. Natasha has also received fellowships at the Institute for Critical and Social Inquiry Fellow, The New School; the Emotions and Society Lab Fellow, University of California Riverside; and Duke University’s Black Feminist Theory Institute.