Predoctoral Fellows

I am a Ph.D. candidate in the MIT Political Science Department and a predoctoral
research fellow at George Washington University’s Institute for Security and Conflict Studies. I research civil-intelligence relations, civil-military relations, nuclear issues, and grand strategy and utilize archival research, structured interviews, and wargaming. My dissertation project examines the strategies that authoritarian intelligence agencies employ to intervene in their own state’s foreign policy decision-making process about the use of force, specifically in the Soviet
Union. The Smith Richardson Foundation’s World Politics and Statecraft Fellowship, MIT Center for International Studies’ Jeanne Guillermin Prize, and Columbia University’s Carnegie/Harriman Research Grant for Ph.D. Students in Social Science have supported my scholarship.

My research lies at the intersection of international security and comparative politics studying authoritarian intelligence agencies, military institutions, and their role in domestic and foreign policy, focusing on Russia and other Soviet successor states. My research advances the understanding of bureaucratic and organizational politics, authoritarian regime stability, civil- intelligence relations, the causes of war, and nuclear policy. My research agenda looks at the policy role of coercive institutions from different perspectives by examining the reform of post- Communist intelligence agencies, intelligence agencies as a tool of authoritarian control, Soviet nuclear counterproliferation policy, and the Russian military’s power projection capability. I also research wargaming and teaching, as well as experimental wargaming. I have published peer- reviewed research in PS: Political Science & Politics and have written for Politico, War on the Rocks, MIT Precis, CSIS, and the Medium International Affairs blog.

Before my PhD studies, I worked at the U.S. Naval War College’s Russia Maritime
Studies Institute, where I researched Russian military strategy and doctrine, provided teaching assistance for an operational wargaming course, and supported wargames for various US Navy component commands, US combatant commands, and the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. I received a bachelor’s degree in Slavic Studies and an master’s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University.