I am a Senior Research Associate at PDRI-DevLab at the University of Pennsylvania. I also serve as co-PI and Director of Civic Research on the Machine Learning for Peace project.
I study political economy in developing countries, with a specific interest in how non-profit organizations shape, and are shaped by, politics and governance. In my research, I aspire to generate insights that can help donors and civil society strengthen democratic institutions in developing countries. To investigate these topics, my research uses spatial analysis, machine learning techniques, and causal inference tools including field and survey experiments.
My research has been published in World Politics, Political Science Research and Methods, and International Studies Quarterly, and I have produced commissioned policy reports for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Center for Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance; the Innovation, Technology, and Research Hub; the Analytic Task on Authoritarian Resurgence and Influence; the Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning; and the Missions to Ethiopia, Cambodia, Ghana, and Zimbabwe. My work has received support from the Open Society Foundations, the National Science Foundation, USAID, an anonymous philanthropic foundation, and the American Political Science Association.
In spring 2024, I am teaching PSCI3200 – Global Development: Intermediate Topics in Politics, Policy, and Data. This course provides an introduction to data analysis methods, inferential techniques, and computational tools in the context of contemporary development research. Materials for the course and source code are available on the course website.
I completed my PhD in comparative politics and international relations at the University of Pennsylvania in 2019. From 2019 – 2022, I was a Postdoc and then Senior Research Associate at Duke University.
