Hello and Welcome!
I am an Associate Professor at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. I am particularly interested in explaining variation in how changes to social, economic, and political hierarchies—especially across racial, gender, class, or religious/ethnic lines—are attempted and achieved, and how war or political violence is often the context or consequence of such endeavors. I explore questions related to this topic using quantitative, qualitative, and experimental methods. During the 2023-2024 Academic Year, I will be the Interim Director of the International Policy Center at the Ford School.
My book, Governing for Revolution, explains why some rebel groups undertake complex and challenging wartime projects to transform social orders by altering hierarchies of power, while most other rebel groups do not. In the book, I incorporate both quantitative and qualitative methods, including creating and analyzing an original dataset, elite interviews held in Lebanon, and archival research at nine sites across six countries. The book was awarded the best book award by APSA's Conflict Processes Section, shortlisted as best book of the year by the Conflict Research Society, and received an honorable mention for best book by the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association. In 2016, my paper in International Organization, "Civil War as State-Building," received honorable mention for the Best Paper Award by APSA Conflict Processes Section, and presents findings from my dissertation, which was awarded the 2018 Walter Isard Best Dissertation Award by the Peace Science Society (International). My research has also been published in the European Journal of International Relations, Comparative Political Studies, the Journal of Politics, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Conflict Management, and Peace Science, and Research and Politics, and has been featured in the Washington Post, Political Violence at a Glance, and the Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS).
The background pictures of my website are my own. Each page contains an image of a country that I visited and that also experienced a civil war at some point after 1945.