Richard W. Frank is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University and a quantitative political scientist studying election violence, electoral integrity, human trafficking, and political violence. His migration-related work examines the links between migrant remittances and the onset of civil war, and between freedom of movement and human trafficking, and he has built original cross-national datasets on human trafficking, election integrity, and constitutions that are used by researchers internationally.

His recent publications include a meta-analysis of the causes of election violence in the Journal of Peace Research (2025) and articles in Political Behavior, International Studies Review, and the Journal of Human Rights. He held an Australian Research Council Discovery Project on the strategic use of election violence (2015-2017), served as co-editor of the Australian Journal of Political Science (2021-2024), and currently sits on the editorial board of International Studies Quarterly. At ANU he teaches International Political Economy and Environment, Human Security and Conflict, among other courses.