Biography

My interests are focused on international organization and institutional design. My work centers on the intersection of international law and politics and how actors in the international system interact within the institutional structures they create.
My dissertation research focuses on the politics of designing the International Criminal Court and how smaller states achieve important gains in institutional design through coalition formation and by linking issues across international institutions. I evaluate this theory empirically through quantitative methodologies such as duration and network analysis. I will receive my Ph.D. from Ohio State University in summer 2009 under the direction of Professor Daniel Verdier.
I am currently working on several other projects in various stages of the journal review process, themes which include the design and selection of voting rules in international organizations, a formal model of globalization and government decisions to repress economic and political rights of citizens, and economic sanctions.
I have taught several undergraduate courses independently at Ohio State University, including an introductory course in International Relations and an upper-division course in International Law and Human Rights. I have also served as a teaching assistant for an econometrics course in regression at ICPSR’s summer statistics program hosted by the University of Michigan.
I obtained an M.A. in political science from Ohio State University in 2005. I graduated with a B.A. in political science from Virginia Tech (summa cum laude, phi beta kappa) in 2003.