Biography

I am a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow in social and political sciences at the European University Institute. I completed my PhD in the Department of Government at Cornell University, after receiving a BA from the University of Washington and MA degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and from Cornell University.
My research bridges insights from international relations and comparative politics, engaging literature on transnational politics, gender and politics, norm diffusion, and the study of social movements. I am particularly interested in how the transnational mobilization of LGBT peoples and international channels of visibility influence social and legal change across states. Currently, I am working on a book manuscript based on my dissertation, When States ‘Come Out’: The Politics of Visibility and the Diffusion of Sexual Minority Rights in Europe. It explores the domestic conditions under which international norms that govern LGBT rights are most likely to spread. I use a mixed-method approach, combining large-n quantitative analysis with in-depth qualitative analysis of key cases, to argue that visibility is central to norm diffusion. The earlier dissertation project won Cornell’s George McT. Kahin Prize, for the research in the areas of international relations and foreign policy studies judged to hold the greatest promise as a contribution to the discipline.
Alongside my research interests, I consider teaching and mentoring students to be an essential part of my work as a scholar. I have taught an array of courses across various levels (undergraduate and graduate), methodological orientations, and issue areas (e.g., transnational politics, statistics, international, comparative and American politics).
My publications have appeared in Mobilization, the European Political Science Review, Perspectives on Europe, and Trans-Atlantic Perspectives. I have received various grants and fellowships, including a Fulbright Schuman Fellowship for the European Union, an Alexander von Humboldt Chancellor Fellowship, a Cornell Sage Fellowship, a Mellon Writing Fellowship, three FLAS Fellowships, and a Max Weber Postdoctoral Prize Fellowship.