Biography

Before coming to the EUI, I received a PhD from Columbia University in New York with concentrations in international relations and comparative politics. I also hold MA degrees in political science and international relations from Columbia University and from the Graduate Institute of International Studies (HEI) in Geneva. Drawing on approaches from political science, behavioural economics, and social psychology, my interdisciplinary research examines the role that identities, trust, and social values play in international politics.
My dissertation, entitled Reciprocity and Prejudice: An Experiment of Hindu-Muslim Cooperation in the Slums of Mumbai, developed and tested a new theory to explain ethnic discrimination. Fieldwork for this project combined laboratory experiments, an original survey, and interviews in Indian slums. As a Max Weber Fellow, I plan to turn my dissertation into a book manuscript. I am also preparing a follow-up experiment that will focus on the practicality and long-term effects of various discrimination-reducing interventions proposed in my dissertation. In order to extend this line of inquiry to the macro-level, I am currently applying multi-level modeling on survey data from 87 countries to test whether generalized trust moderates the negative effect of ethnic diversity on people’s willingness to contribute to public goods.

My peer-reviewed publications include an empirical rebuttal of Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations, published in Journal of Peace Research, and an International Political Science Review article testing constructivist assumptions about social determinants of regional integration. A recent methodological paper, co-authored with Donald Green and currently under review at a major journal, demonstrates that laboratory experimental results in the fields of economics and political science are often biased due to uncontrolled heterogeneity.

In addition to teaching several political science courses at Columbia University, as an independent instructor or a teaching assistant, I have lectured to senior government officials and military officers from various countries at NATO Defense College and the George C. Marshall European Centre for Security Studies.