Biography

I am currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Political Science department at Brown University. In April 2011 I will defend my doctoral dissertation, titled ‘Friends and Rivals: Why Allies Disagree on Major Security Issues’. I also currently serve as an adjunct professor in the Political Science department at Brown University, where I teach courses on international relations and American foreign policy.
I have a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Michigan, an M.Sc. in Political Theory from the London School of Economics, and an M.A. in Political Science from Brown University.
My research areas include alliance politics, American foreign policy, European foreign and security policy, nuclear weapons, and international security.
My dissertation explores the alliance security dilemma under unipolarity. For America’s European allies, I argue that their cohesion or discord on major security issues since the end of the Cold War is a product of symmetrical (cooperation) or asymmetrical (discord) fears of abandonment or entrapment by the United States.
In addition to my dissertation, current and past research projects have focused on international relations theory and the rise of European security policy, European security governance, global power shifts, Russia’s use of the natural gas giant Gazprom to advance its foreign policy interests, and the role of ideology on state behaviour and interstate interactions in contemporary world politics. My most recent publication, on America’s position in a post-unipolar world, appeared in the journal Orbis.