Michaël Aklin is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh, with a secondary appointment in Public Policy at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. He obtained his PhD at New York University, an MA at the University of Essex, and a licence at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva (Switzerland). He was also a Visiting Scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. 

His work focuses on international and comparative political economy. He is particularly interested in understanding why some countries are able to reduce their vulnerability to major risks such as financial crises or environmental catastrophes. His papers have appeared or are forthcoming in outlets such as the American Journal of Political Science, Environmental & Resource Economics, Nature Energy, and Science Advances. He has  written columns for the Washington Post's Monkey Cage and Le Temps. His work has been discussed among others by Nature Climate Change, the Economist, and by NPR.