I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at UC Davis. I received my Ph.D. in political science with distinction from Columbia University and was a postdoctoral scholar at the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford and the Center for Global Development (CGD) (non-resident). I am a member of the Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP) and Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) networks and a Steering Committee member of the Future of Democracy Initiative at the UC IGCC .
I study violence and collective action in a number of different settings. My main research agenda, which began in Zimbabwe, is on election violence, including how voters behave in the face of violence and how elites strategize and organize violent elections. I’m currently working on research that aims to understand how contextual factors like party strength shape the causes and effects of election violence, and on research with policy partners on how to prevent and mitigate its effects. My second research agenda is on collective action after violent crime. This work, based primarily in Mexico, tries to understand when citizens demand punitive responses to crimes and when they will mobilize around vigilante actions.