Welcome! I am an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I specialize in international relations and research methods with a focus on violent non-state armed actors, identity, and conflict. My research is published or forthcoming in Comparative Political Studies, International Interactions, and Security Studies. 

My work seeks to answer two main questions: (1) How does ideology influence cooperation (eg: group formation and alliances) in conflicts? and (2) What are the consequences of group formation on conflict processes? As a member of the Alternative Governance and Climate Change project, I also study how rebel groups manage threats to the environment. I use a variety of methods to analyze these issues, including agent-based modeling, Bayesian statistics, survey experiments, and field research.

Previously, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Maryland. I received my PhD in political science from the University of Pittsburgh in 2023.  You can find my CV here.