Welcome! I am a data scientist, entrepreneur, and independent scholar based in Durham, North Carolina.
My work adapts computational and analytical tools to answer questions about difficult-to-observe settings. These questions are central to understanding and quantifying geopolitical political risk and are broadly transferable to other contexts where it is important to measure and understand hidden processes.
Methodologically, I explore creative ways to apply the data science toolkit to important substantive questions. Along with colleagues at Duke University and elsewhere, I have a line of research on developing and applying a novel Item Response Theory model that produces underlying dimensions that can be directly interpreted. A second major line of research uses machine learning to create new variables to evaluate emerging issue areas and those that have historically been difficult to work with systematically. Substantively, I have a body of research that focuses on the causes and consequences of apparent pathologies that arise among organizations facing survival threats and resource scarcity. In these contexts, organizations exchange long-term best practices for short-term survival.
I was a Postdoctoral Researcher at Duke University during the 2023-2024 academic year. Before that, I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill from 2020-2023. I received my PhD from Duke University in 2020, an MA from McGill University in 2011, and a BA from the University of Pennsylvania in 2007. From 2007-2014, I worked as an analyst with the SITE Intelligence Group, where I conducted qualitative analysis of online terror communities.