Welcome!

I am a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of Chicago. My research examines government efforts to reorganize or centralize political authority, often reflected in campaigns to consolidate control over land, resources, or populations. Drawing on quasi-experimental designs, archival research, and field-based case studies—including administrative and survey data, interviews, and village-level testimony and records—my dissertation analyzes historical and contemporary Indigenous–state relations in the United States, with comparative extensions in the Arctic and Oceania. I am especially interested in how institutional design shapes political participation and collective organization in longstanding democracies. My research shows that, in these settings, assimilationist and incorporative reforms often leave behind durable arrangements that constrain central government authority—visible, for example, in land settlements, resource regimes, and systems of environmental co-management.

My work is published in the Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy and has been generously supported by sources such as the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts, the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists, and the Pozen Center for Human Rights, as well as by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the American Political Science Association. I hold a Master’s in Political Science from the University of Chicago, a Master’s in Politics and Education from Columbia University, and a Bachelor’s in English Literature from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.