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 Cambridge University Press, Climate Change, 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.