About Me

Welcome! I am a dual-title Ph.D. candidate in Political Science and Social Data Analytics at Penn State University.

My substantive research interests lie in international relations, with a particular focus on international security, foreign policy, signaling, and diplomacy. Combining these interests with comparative politics and international political economy, my research examines why political actors choose particular foreign policy actions, what those actions communicate, and how they are interpreted by domestic or international audiences. I examine these questions in the contexts of diplomacy, coercion, and crisis bargaining.

Methodologically, my research utilizes design-based causal inference, experimental methods, machine learning, natural language processing, geospatial data analysis, and qualitative case studies to study these questions. In parallel, I pursue methodological research that develops and refines these tools for political science applications. My work has been published in The R Journal and is under review at other journals.

In Spring 2027, I will be an Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS) Rising Researcher at Penn State. I was the recipient of the Milton B. Dolinger Graduate Fellowship from Penn State’s College of the Liberal Arts (2025–2026) and previously held the Program in Empirical International Relations (PEIR) Fellowship (2024–2025). Prior to Penn State, I earned an M.A. in Politics from New York University, an M.Sc. in International Political Economy in Singapore, and dual B.A. degrees in English (Linguistics) and Economics in China. Before pursuing an academic career, I worked as a policy analyst in Shanghai and as a regional journalist based in Bangkok, experiences that continue to inform my interest in international politics and foreign policy.