Prof. Clionadh (Cliona) Raleigh created ACLED while writing her PhD in 2005. Since 2014, ACLED has operated as a non-profit, non-governmental organization in the United States.

While guiding the development of ACLED, she is also Professor of Political Violence and Geography in the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex in the UK.

Cliona’s areas of expertise include the dynamics of conflict and violence, changing patterns of political violence and conflict data. Her work has also focused on African political environments and elite networks, and she has largely concentrated on subnational power dynamics and their influence on violent movements. In her intensive in-country research, she has engaged with questions on environmental change and violence patterns, and more recently, has developed new measures of civilian exposure to violence.