About

I am a quantitative social scientist with a PhD in political science and international affairs from the School of Global Policy and Strategy and the Department of Political Science at the University of California San Diego.

My research interests lie at the interesection of comparative politics, international relations, and the political economy of development. My substantive work explores the political geography of state building and civil war in Africa. My dissertation project uses geospatial data and methods to map and explain the spatial extent of state control in contemporary African states. I am particularly interested in the variation in control throughout the continent, both within states and between them. I am also interested in the effects of state control, or the lack thereof: How do patterns of welfare, security, and market activity differ in areas controlled by the center compared to areas in which the goverment either lacks a monopoly on violence, or exercises little authority? Methodologically, I gravitate towards geospatial methods, large n sample surveys, and experimental designs.

During the PhD program, I spent several years in Berlin as a research fellow with the Institutions and Political Inequality group in the Political Economy of Development cluster at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. Prior to the PhD, I completed a Master of International Affairs degree at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego, with emphases in international security and Latin American politics. I also hold a B.A. in international relations, as well as a B.S. and M.A. in political science.

I currently serve as a lecturer in the Department of Political Science at San Diego State University, where I teach a variety of courses in comparative and global politics, American politics, and African politics. Previously, I served as an instructor of political science and international affairs at UC San Diego, where I taught courses ranging from introductory surveys of American politics, comparative politics, and research methods (applied statistics and GIS / geospatial statistics), to upper division undergraduate courses in African politics, civil war, and development, and graduate-level courses in international security and social science research methods. You can find my most recent syllabi, along with my teaching statement, under the teaching tab above.