I am a Provost's Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Political Science for the 2022-2023 academic year. Additionally, I am a tenure track Assistant Professor at Purdue University (on research leave from 2022-2023). My work focuses on the determinants of conflict resolution mechanisms and their consequences. I have a strong research interest in understanding the decision-making process that leads groups to choose violence for resolving political disputes.
To this end, my dissertation examines rebel and incumbent law. I bring my background and expertise in the scientific study of law and conflict to bear on an understudied, yet crucial aspect of conflict negotiations: the compatibility of adversaries’ legal preferences. This underexplored dimension of conflict negotiation affects not only the success of incorporating rebels into a new post-conflict government, but more importantly, it demonstrates how incompatible legal preferences can lead adversaries back to the battlefield. Within my dissertation, I develop a legal system (in)compatibility framework that focuses on rebel and incumbent legal preferences over particular issue domains (e.g., property rights, source of law, procedural justice, and recognition of social diversity). This theoretical framework motivates my data collection effort, which is the first cross-national dyadic dataset of rebel and incumbent legal systems from 1989-2006. I am also collecting primary source data from archival repositories to conduct qualitative case studies. This dissertation has the potential to provide an explanation that may subsume theoretical explanations of intrastate conflict – including ethnic fractionalization/marginalization and commitment problems – and has important policy implications for state-building. It has been fully funded by the National Science Foundation and Rice University's Social Sciences Research Institute.
In addition to my dissertation, my research addresses the dynamics of violence and non-state governance during civil wars. More specifically, I explore issues ranging from nonstate governance, indiscriminate violence and terrorism, natural resource extraction, and the use of justice mechanisms. Additionally, I examine how variations in legal frameworks, particularly legal enforcement mechanisms, affect the enforceability of economic sanctions. Two of these works have been published in the International Studies Quarterly and Journal of Conflict Resolution while others are either under review or being finalized for review.
I am a former Predoctoral Fellow at the University of Arizona's School of Government and Public Policy. Additionally, I am a 2017-2018 APSA Minority Fellow and a former Visiting Research Fellow at National Defense University. I hold a PhD in Political Science from Rice University, Master of Arts in Politics from New York University, and Master of Arts in Global Affairs and a JD from Florida International University. I also have unique professional experiences that expand across industries: national security, intelligence and investigations, and law. I draw on the expertise I developed throughout these experiences, which include fieldwork in Latin America, when examining political phenomena.
Finally, I am the founder of the Minorities in Social Sciences group at Rice University. With this organization, we seek to push the boundaries of science and increase the representation of minorities in academia and provide mentorship to underrepresented and underprivileged high school and college students. Because I seek to expand such institutions throughout academia I have attached my Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion statement below.
To this end, my dissertation examines rebel and incumbent law. I bring my background and expertise in the scientific study of law and conflict to bear on an understudied, yet crucial aspect of conflict negotiations: the compatibility of adversaries’ legal preferences. This underexplored dimension of conflict negotiation affects not only the success of incorporating rebels into a new post-conflict government, but more importantly, it demonstrates how incompatible legal preferences can lead adversaries back to the battlefield. Within my dissertation, I develop a legal system (in)compatibility framework that focuses on rebel and incumbent legal preferences over particular issue domains (e.g., property rights, source of law, procedural justice, and recognition of social diversity). This theoretical framework motivates my data collection effort, which is the first cross-national dyadic dataset of rebel and incumbent legal systems from 1989-2006. I am also collecting primary source data from archival repositories to conduct qualitative case studies. This dissertation has the potential to provide an explanation that may subsume theoretical explanations of intrastate conflict – including ethnic fractionalization/marginalization and commitment problems – and has important policy implications for state-building. It has been fully funded by the National Science Foundation and Rice University's Social Sciences Research Institute.
In addition to my dissertation, my research addresses the dynamics of violence and non-state governance during civil wars. More specifically, I explore issues ranging from nonstate governance, indiscriminate violence and terrorism, natural resource extraction, and the use of justice mechanisms. Additionally, I examine how variations in legal frameworks, particularly legal enforcement mechanisms, affect the enforceability of economic sanctions. Two of these works have been published in the International Studies Quarterly and Journal of Conflict Resolution while others are either under review or being finalized for review.
I am a former Predoctoral Fellow at the University of Arizona's School of Government and Public Policy. Additionally, I am a 2017-2018 APSA Minority Fellow and a former Visiting Research Fellow at National Defense University. I hold a PhD in Political Science from Rice University, Master of Arts in Politics from New York University, and Master of Arts in Global Affairs and a JD from Florida International University. I also have unique professional experiences that expand across industries: national security, intelligence and investigations, and law. I draw on the expertise I developed throughout these experiences, which include fieldwork in Latin America, when examining political phenomena.
Finally, I am the founder of the Minorities in Social Sciences group at Rice University. With this organization, we seek to push the boundaries of science and increase the representation of minorities in academia and provide mentorship to underrepresented and underprivileged high school and college students. Because I seek to expand such institutions throughout academia I have attached my Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion statement below.
| LER DEI Statement |
