Hello, and thanks for visiting. I’m an Assistant Instructional Professor in the MA Program on Computational Social Science at the University of Chicago. I have also been a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. I received my PhD from Ohio State University, where I was a founding member of the MESO (Modeling Emergent Social Order) lab. My research focuses on international institutions and cooperation from a complex systems perspective using computational methods.

My work is animated by the core political question of how people choose to govern their interdependence. When do we solve problems in decentralized communities, and when do we create novel political actors to solve problems for us? Theoretically, my research spans classic theories of international institutions, state building, and the social origins of political systems. My dissertation argues that the creation of strong institutions to solve cooperation problems is the result of systemic pessimism about the possibility of cooperation combined with the recognition of mutual interdependence. Paradoxically, closer political unions result from systemic mistrust.

Methodologically, I employ computational models to develop theory alongside mixed-method empirical work that combines cutting-edge quantitative methods alongside historical analysis.