Education
PhD in Political Science, Yale University
Subjects
Comparative Politics, Political Economy, Latin American Politics, Violence and Crime, Peace
Achievements
Fulbright Scholar, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and the Colombian government; Fox International Fellow at Yale's MacMillan Center, visiting researcher at El Colegio de Mexico; 2017 national prize for Best Master's Thesis from the Colombian Academic Forum of Economics; full scholarship for undergraduate economics studies at Universidad de los Andes based on one of the highest national high school exit exam scores
About
David is a Fulbright PhD candidate in Political Science at Yale University, specializing in comparative politics, political economy, and Latin American politics of development. His research uses quantitative and qualitative approaches to examine the causes and consequences of violence, crime, and peace, focusing on how these dynamics shape citizens’ perceptions of state and non-state actors. He has a sustained record of mentoring students at the high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels.
Discipline
Politics & Policy
Academic Achievements
David Cerero Guerra is a Fulbright Scholar, sponsored jointly by the U.S. Department of State and the Colombian government. He was also a Fox International Fellow at Yale University's MacMillan Center, where he served as a visiting researcher at El Colegio de México in Mexico City. In 2017, he received the national prize for Best Master’s Thesis from the Colombian Academic Forum of Economics for his graduate research. Earlier in his academic career, he was awarded a full scholarship to pursue his undergraduate studies in economics at Universidad de los Andes, based on achieving one of the highest scores on the Colombian national high school exit exam.
Teaching & Mentoring Experience
David has a strong and sustained record of mentoring students at the high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels. During his undergraduate studies at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, he served as a lead mentor in a university program aimed at supporting low-income high school students preparing for the national exit exam. For six months, he led weekly two-hour sessions with a group of 12 students, covering topics in mathematics, science, and the humanities. At the undergraduate level, David participated in a Fulbright mentorship initiative in 2022 designed to support students from Colombian public universities in their transition to graduate school. Over a six-month period, he held weekly one-on-one sessions with his assigned mentee, focusing on professional development and academic planning for postgraduate study. At the graduate level, David served as a mentor for EconThaki, a program that supports prospective applicants to U.S. graduate programs in economics and related fields. Over the course of three months, he worked in biweekly sessions with an assigned mentee to help them develop a research paper, guiding them through the full research process from refining the research question to conducting analysis and interpreting results. Finally, David has served as a teaching fellow at Yale University for two courses: Introduction to Statistics at the Ph.D. level and Politics of American Cities at the undergraduate level. In both courses, he led weekly discussion and review sessions throughout the academic term. His teaching was consistently well received, earning an average student evaluation score of 4.5 out of 5.
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