Oliver Kaplan is an Associate Professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver and is the Associate Director of Human Trafficking Center. He is the author of the book, “Resisting War: How Communities Protect Themselves” (Cambridge University Press, 2017), which examines how civilian communities organize to protect themselves from wartime violence. He was a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and previously a postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University in the Woodrow Wilson School and at Stanford University.

His research interests include empirical studies of civil wars and human rights. As part of his research Kaplan has conducted fieldwork in Colombia and the Philippines. His research has been funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Smith Richardson Foundation and other grants and has been published in The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Conflict Management and Peace Science, Stability, The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, CNN, and National Interest. Kaplan received his Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University and completed his B.A. at UC San Diego.