I am a Lecturer in the Political Science department at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. I received my PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. My research is published at International Studies Quarterly, The Review of International Organizations, and Third World Quarterly, and my book, New Regional Authorities: Self-Determination and the Global South, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.

My research and teaching focus on international law and organizations, world order, and changing norms of sovereignty and intervention. I explore how the Global South has shaped and contested norms surrounding human rights and development, and the implications of this contestation for global order. My regional focus is Latin America and Africa, and I am especially interested in unexplored ways that political projects from these regions have overlapped with and drawn from one another.

My book examines the decision by leaders in Latin America and Africa to compromise on the norm of non-interference by creating institutions to enforce human rights within their regional organizations. I argue that this was a strategy to establish their regional organizations as authorities over human rights and, in doing so, to subtly resist unwanted forms of authority and reshape the international order to uphold the principle of self-determination. This project received the 2023 Nuno P. Monteiro Award for Best Dissertation from the APSA International Relations Theory section and the 2023 Best Dissertation Award from the APSA International Collaboration section.

Previously, I completed a Master’s degree in Human Rights Studies at Columbia University, and I received my undergraduate degree from the University of Kansas. I also spent time working at the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Stockholm Policy Group, and the U.S. Embassy in Croatia.