About

I am a fifth year Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). I specialize in the application of machine learning technology to the study of contentious politics. I was previously a Herb York Dissertation Fellow at IGCC for the 2019-2020 academic year. You can find the most current version of my CV here.

My dissertation (in progress) develops a novel theory of rebel media as a local support strategy that draws attention to the increasingly influential role that the changing landscape of communication technology plays in the dynamics of local support. In this project, I bring together over five years of online media data across four rebel organizations in the Middle East and Central Asia to show how territorial control constrains and reshapes the way that extremist rebels use modern media to communicate their message to a more diverse group of potential followers. This work serves as the centerpiece of a research agenda featuring several working papers on rebel organization, radicalization, and communication in an increasingly interconnected internet age.

Before attending UCSD, I studied and received my degree in international development at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). My thesis as an Undergraduate Research Scholar explored the interaction of state and international organization interests in the provision of public services to refugees in Jordan.