Director, Center for the Study of Global Issues (GLOBIS)
Associate Professor of International Affairs
K. Chad Clay is the Director of the Center for the Study of Global Issues (GLOBIS) and an Associate Professor in the Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia. He is also the Co-Founder and Methodology Research and Design Lead of the Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI). Clay is also the founder and primary faculty for the GLOBIS Human Rights Research Lab, as well as the Program Director for the GLOBIS Ireland Study Away Program.
Clay’s research focuses on the measurement, causes, and consequences of governments’ human rights practices. Due to governments’ reluctance to report on their own human rights abuses, Clay has played a key role in various projects to overcome this problem by producing valid and reliable quantitative data on human rights worldwide. This work led to the co-founding of HRMI, a global initiative that produces data through collaboration between human rights advocates, practitioners, and scholars. HRMI’s work has been cited by numerous publications and institutions, including the Washington Post, The Guardian, the World Bank, Amnesty International, the U.S. State Department, and the United Nations. HRMI’s data and visualizations are freely available on the HRMI Rights Tracker.
Beyond his work on measurement, Clay has published research on the political economy of human rights abuse, as well as how human rights practices are affected by non-governmental organizations, economic sanctions, and US troop deployments. Clay’s research has been published in many peer-reviewed outlets, including the Journal of Politics, the British Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Peace Research, International Studies Quarterly, and the Journal of Human Rights.
Clay is also dedicated to human rights education for his students and the public. He was the 2017 recipient of the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs Excellence in Teaching Award and the 2023 recipient of the Morehead Honors College J. Hatten Howard III Teaching Award. As the Director of GLOBIS, Clay created the GLOBIS Human Rights Research Lab. This selective program provides hands-on experience with real-world human rights projects like HRMI and teaches students to conduct cutting-edge human rights research. As a result, the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs awarded GLOBIS’ Human Rights Research and Education programs the 2024 Intersection Award for Linking Theory and Practice. As part of his efforts to increase public outreach on human rights, Clay gave a TEDxUGA talk in 2023, “You’re a Human Rights Person, You Just Don’t Know It Yet.”
Prior to receiving his PhD in political science from Binghamton University in 2012, he received a BA in chemistry from Hendrix College in 2003 and MA degrees in political science and sociology from the University of Memphis in 2007 and 2008, respectively. He joined the faculty at SPIA in 2012.
