Welcome! I am Assistant Professor of Political Science and Ethnic Studies at the University of Utah. Previously, I was a Post-Doctoral Fellow with the Center for Inter-American Policy and Research at Tulane University, and received my PhD from the Department of Government at Cornell University. My research interests lie in comparative politics, specifically on identity, inequality, and citizenship, with a regional focus on Latin America. 

You can find my CV here, and read more about my recently published book here, as well as other on-going research here.

My recently published book (Cambridge, 2024) leverages a phenomenon of racial reclassification in Brazil to shed light on the processes of identity politicization. I leverage a newfound tendency for Brazilians to capitalize on fluid racial boundaries to reclassify towards blackness. I argue that these patterns are the unintended consequences of recent state-led efforts to better incorporate lower-class citizens through educational expansion. This research has been supported by the National Science and Fulbright-Hays Foundations, and has been recognized with several awards, including from the American Political Science and the Brazilian Studies Associations.

My current on-going research explores persistently high fear of crime in Latin America, especially in low-crime and non-conflict settings. It seeks to identify sources of the widespread culture of insecurity in the region and its consequences for the politics of inequality and redistribution.