Olivia Mitchell is a master's student in the Davis Center's REECA program, specializing in authoritarian governance, civil society and NGO advocacy, gender and domestic violence policy in Kazakhstan. Her current MA research examines how domestic violence laws are created and contested in authoritarian Kazakhstan, concentrating on how civil society influences and navigates this process. She graduated with first class B.A. honors from the University of Cambridge in History and Modern Foreign Languages (Russian). As part of her undergraduate studies, she spent a year abroad in Kazakhstan and Georgia, where she studied Russian language and post-Soviet politics. Olivia aims to pursue a career in the international geopolitical sphere with a focus on advancing women’s rights and tackling gender-based violence globally. Her research interests include: domestic violence policy and legal reform in authoritarian states; civil society and NGO advocacy under authoritarianism; gender-based violence; Russia-Ukraine relations; disinformation.
Last updated in September 2026.