I am an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Merced. I am also a Research Affiliate at MIT Governance Lab and at the Stanford Governance Project. I am affiliated with CAPE and co-direct the PEARS Lab at UC Merced. I received my Ph.D. in Political Science in 2020 from MIT.
I study topics in comparative political behavior and political economy using a variety of techniques such as field experiments, surveys, interviews, and observational data. My book project, titled “Between Citizens and the State: How Bureaucratic Transaction Costs Sustain Clientelism,” explores how bureaucratic transaction costs prevent individuals from directly claiming welfare benefits. Instead, these costs create a market for clientelist intermediaries, disincentivizing governments from creating sound social policy, and preventing citizens from engaging with the state effectively. The policy instrument I developed through my research was awarded the 2017 Innovations in Transparency award by the Mexican Government’s Transparency Institute. My dissertation received an honorable mention in the 2020 Best Dissertation Award in Experimental Research from the American Political Science Association.
I studied Political Science at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) and have been a pre-doctoral fellow at the Center for US-Mexican Studies at the University of California, San Diego, and a post-doctoral fellow at CDDRL at Stanford University.
I am a proud native of Monterrey, Mexico and an adopted child of Mexico City. As most Mexicans, I have two family names: the first is Rizzo and the second is Reyes. I mostly go with Rizzo for simplicity, but both ‘Rizzo’ or ‘Rizzo Reyes’ are appropriate.
Feel free to contact me at trizzo[at]ucmerced[dot]edu