Research

My research covers two broad areas of interest: the role of information and information communication technologies (ICT) in international and domestic politics and intrastate conflict. Across these topics, I employ computational methods including natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning.

Information Communication Technologies and Politics

• The Information Environment: My primary research interests revolve around better understanding the online environment. This includes projects on the spread of unreliable news sources by algorithmic systems, the nature of information acquisition in news deserts, the political and social risks posed by generative AI, and the role of political elites in the spread of unreliable news sources.
• Human Rights Reporting: This set of papers uses natural language processing and machine learning to contribute to the ongoing debate about compositional changes in the global reports on human rights violations. Papers on this topic have been published in The American Political Science Review, Political Analysis, and The Journal of Human Rights.

Intrastate Conflict

• Militant Messaging: In an ongoing book project, I examine how militant groups use messaging to mobilize support for their movements. Using a theoretically motivated typology and flexible machine learning algorithms, I am working to identify the messaging strategies and fine-grained issues communicated by groups.
• Militant Competition: A long-term interest is understanding the implications of competition between militant groups. This includes a series of papers assessing the link between domestic competition and terrorism and an NSF funded grant to collect data on conflicts between hundreds of militant groups. Papers on this topic have been funded by the National Science Foundation and published in The Journal of Politics and The Journal of Conflict Resolution, among others.