I am currently a lecturer in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Baltimore. I received my Ph.D. in political science from the University of Alabama in the summer of 2024. 

My research broadly focuses on human rights and political regime transformation. More specifically, I am interested in the complex dynamics that shape the legal rights of marginalized communities and the mechanics surrounding episodes of democratic backsliding and resilience. Bridging these two areas together, I really like to study how movements towards and away from democracy affect countries' respect for legal rights of different marginalized groups. 

As a part of my research on legal rights, I created the Trans Rights Indicator Project (TRIP). My solo-authored article introducing this dataset can be found here in Perspectives on Politics. You can also read more about the TRIP dataset here. This data set received the 2024 "Lijphart/Przeworski/Verba Best Dataset Honorable Mention" from the Comparative Politics section of APSA. 

I am also a member of the Comparative Political Regimes (CPR) Lab. Our current projects focus on regime resilience and breakdown throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Read more about our research here.