Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor of International Security & Law at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. Previously I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Peace Fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace. I received my Ph.D. in political science from the University of Pennsylvania in May 2022.
My research is situated at the nexus of international peace and security, political violence, and forced migration. It is focused on understanding conflict processes by examining the causes of, and constraints on, government policies of group-based ethnic violence and exclusion. Since these policies often create refugees, and/or affect refugees and migrants, my work bridges the fields of national and ethnic conflict regulation, and migration, refugees, and citizenship studies. I employ cross-regional comparisons of the Global South, with research and professional expertise in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. I am also interested in how the concepts we choose, and their measurement, impact our findings and have multiple projects focused on concept formation in the study of political violence. My research is published in the Journal of Peace Research, Security Studies, the British Journal of Sociology, Political Science Quarterly, International Political Science Review, The Conversation, Political Violence at a Glance, and The Washington Post.
In addition to my academic work, I have over ten years of experience as a humanitarian and development practitioner and I continue to engage in consultancies with international organizations. As such, I aspire for my research to be broadly relevant to audiences across international relations and comparative politics, as well as to policymakers and practitioners.
I am originally from Detroit, Michigan.
My research is situated at the nexus of international peace and security, political violence, and forced migration. It is focused on understanding conflict processes by examining the causes of, and constraints on, government policies of group-based ethnic violence and exclusion. Since these policies often create refugees, and/or affect refugees and migrants, my work bridges the fields of national and ethnic conflict regulation, and migration, refugees, and citizenship studies. I employ cross-regional comparisons of the Global South, with research and professional expertise in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. I am also interested in how the concepts we choose, and their measurement, impact our findings and have multiple projects focused on concept formation in the study of political violence. My research is published in the Journal of Peace Research, Security Studies, the British Journal of Sociology, Political Science Quarterly, International Political Science Review, The Conversation, Political Violence at a Glance, and The Washington Post.
In addition to my academic work, I have over ten years of experience as a humanitarian and development practitioner and I continue to engage in consultancies with international organizations. As such, I aspire for my research to be broadly relevant to audiences across international relations and comparative politics, as well as to policymakers and practitioners.
I am originally from Detroit, Michigan.
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