I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Government at Harvard University, where I study political violence and U.S. foreign policy. My dissertation examines the relationship between norms around the use of force and patterns in international conflict. My project investigates this question through discourse analysis of strategic and legal texts, historical case studies from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and macro-level statistical analysis of cross-sectional conflict data between 1800 and 2011.
My co-authored work—on post-1945 norms and the disappearance of war declarations—is featured in Security Studies. My other in-progress considers the implications of my dissertation research for learning in counterinsurgency and U.S. intelligence estimates of non-state actors. I have brought my international relations perspective to the study of presidential power, as well, in an article on unilateral military action, forthcoming at Presidential Studies Quarterly.
I am currently a Graduate Student Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Previously, I was a Hans J. Morgenthau Grand Strategy Fellow at Notre Dame’s International Security Center and an adjunct policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, where I worked on issues related to space governance and norms. I am originally from Santa Monica, California.
My CV is available here.