Zora Hauser is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Sociology. In her work, Zora investigates criminal governance and illicit economies in a variety of settings, with a focus on dynamics of trust and violence.

Currently, she contributes to CRIMGOV (P.I. Federico Varese), a research project aimed at understanding how criminal groups produce, trade, and govern. Within the CRIMGOV framework, Zora explores the transatlantic cocaine industry. Additionally, Zora convenes the ExLegi Seminar Series, together with Federico Varese.

Zora received her DPhil in Sociology at the University of Oxford in 2022 and is now turning her dissertation on the international expansion of the Calabrian mafia into a book (forthcoming with Oxford University Press).

Her work has been featured on CNN, in Der Spiegel, the FAZ, and the Swiss Broadcasting Group (SRF), among others. Based on her research, Zora has given evidence in front of the first parliamentary inquiry into Italian mafias in German history.

During her DPhil, Zora served as a security analyst within the University of Cambridge’s Partnership for Conflict, Crime & Security Research (PaCCS). She has previously worked in the private sector on countering transnational trafficking and served as an analyst for the NATO Foundation and the Italian Ministry of Defence.