I am a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) of Comparative Politics at University College London (UCL).

My scholarly training is in comparative politics and quantitative research methods and I focus on the study of political regimes and social movements in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

My broad research interests include democracy and authoritarianism, domestic and transnational LGBTQ movements, judicial politics, and law and society. My current book project, LGBTQ Activism and the Politics of Altering Public Perceptions of Sexual Minorities Across Arab States, examines the rise of LGBTQ social movements in the MENA since the early 2000s. The manuscript draws on a range of methodological approaches such as survey experiments, fieldwork, and online ethnography to analyze variation in how these movements frame LGBTQ rights claims and the impact their activism has on law and public opinion.

In our recently published book with Dr. Nathan Brown, Steven Schaaf, and Julian Waller, my coauthors and I examine the institutional autonomy of state institutions under authoritarian rule drawing on a wealth of contemporary and historical cases. You can read more about the book here.

While at GWU and UCL, I have been fortunate to design and teach multiple courses in comparative politics, Middle East politics, qualitative methods, democracy and authoritarianism, and LGBTQ social movements.

My work has benefited from generous external grants from the ZEIT-Stiftung, the Institute of Middle East Studies (IMES) at the Elliot School of International Affairs, and the Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS).

I received a PhD in political science from the George Washington University, an MA in International Relations from the University of Chicago, and a BSc in political science and economics from Illinois College.