I am an Assistant Professor at Texas A&M's Bush School of Government and Public Service. Previously, I was a Rosenwald Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy and International Security and Niehaus Postdoctoral Fellow at The John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College. I received my Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Chicago in 2021.
My research focuses on international security, with a regional interest in Russia and Eastern Europe. In my book project and related articles, I examine how powerful states use security assistance tools, like military training and advising, and when these tools succeed in influencing other militaries. Second, in a series of articles, I examine how security cooperation and assistance affect democracy, human rights, and civil-military relations in recipient countries. My final line of inquiry examines proxy war and political violence. My work combines methods from political economy with qualitative research based on archival work and original interviews. My research is published in the Journal of Peace Research, International Politics, the International Studies Review, and Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. It has been supported by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and the Minerva Research Initiative, the Notre Dame International Security Center, The Charles Koch Foundation, and The Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts, and The Social Sciences Research Center at the University of Chicago. I earned an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Chicago, and a B.S. in Foreign Service from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, with a concentration in International Security and a minor in Russia and East European Studies. I speak Polish and some Russian and held internships or fellowships with The RAND Corporation, the Political-Economic section at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, and the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee. |