Bio
Welcome! I am a newly appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Boston College, starting in July 2025.
My research focuses on statebuilding and political institutions in modern autocracies, with a regional emphasis on East and Inner Asia. I examine how authoritarian leaders design institutions and mechanisms to manage and control local and subordinate bureaucrats, ensuring compliance with the regime’s policy agenda. I also study the short- and long-term effects of authoritarian political institutions on regime stability, socioeconomic outcomes, and citizens’ political attitudes.
My book manuscript, titled Statebuilding by Campaign: The Making of Modern Chinese Bureaucracy, 1949-76, studies the various mechanisms employed by the Chinese regime under Mao Zedong to motivate and control subordinate bureaucrats during the first three decades of the People’s Republic. Additionally, my works on East Asian politics have been published in Comparative Politics, The China Quarterly, Ethnopolitics, and The Routledge Handbook in Anti-Corruption Research and Practice.
Education
Ph.D. in Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison | 2018 - 23
Master of Public Policy, Georgetown University | 2014 - 16
B.A. in Political Science, Macalester College | 2010 - 14
Employment
Assistant Professor in Political Science, Boston College | 2025 - Present
Earl Johnson Lecturer in Political Science, University of Chicago | 2023 - 25
Associate in Research, Duke-Margolis Institute | 2016 - 18