profile

I am a Ph.D. Candidate in Politics at Princeton University, a Graduate Affiliate of the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance, and a Graduate Fellow with the Princeton Sovereign Finance Lab. My research examines how international economic changes linked to climate change and public finance shape domestic political institutions and behavior. More broadly, I study the political economy of climate change, government finance and sovereign debt, and natural resources.

I have extensive teaching experience in international relations and quantitative methods at both the graduate and undergraduate level, including co-organizing the R for Public Policy course for the Princeton Junior Summer Institute (2022-24). I previously worked in the AidData Research and Evaluation Unit, where I conducted geospatial impact evaluations of development projects and oversaw the Geocoding team. I have earned degrees from Washington University in St. Louis (A.B. Economics) and Princeton (M.A. Politics).

Dissertation Project: "Global Economic Change and Domestic Political Responses" [Details]
My dissertation investigates how diverse political actors respond to economic disruptions rooted in climate change and trade. In one chapter, currently under review, I investigate how governments respond to permanent, negative shocks to oil revenues. Building on the resource curse literature, I theorize that enduring oil price declines impose fiscal constraints on distributive policies of governments, forcing them to strategically invest in improving state effectiveness. The project links the resource curse literature to the clean energy transition and leverages the 2010 shale oil revolution as a natural experiment to show that rather than retrenching or liberalizing in the face of long-term oil price declines, governments instead pursue limited institutional reforms.

A second chapter, co-authored with Fiona Bare and Vincent Heddesheimer, examines how firms respond to business risks and opportunities from climate change. This paper has been conditionally accepted for publication at the American Journal of Political Science. We develop a theory of firm lobbying behavior grounded in the distinct policy solutions relevant to various types of climate exposure. Using firm-level data from earnings calls and lobbying disclosures, we show that firms are more likely to engage in lobbying when they perceive climate-related business opportunities, not just risks.

The final chapter analyzes how energy trade dependence shapes foreign policy alignment. Exploiting the sudden emergence of alternative suppliers following the shale oil revolution, I show that higher levels of historical dependence on energy imports are associated with greater political alignment, and that this alignment declines as the set of potential suppliers expands. Using data on countries’ speeches and voting behavior in the United Nations General Assembly, I demonstrate that this dynamic shapes both how states communicate about, and how they vote on, shared international issues.

Articles and Working Papers

* dissertation papers

Energy Transitions and Political Transformation: Evidence from the Shale Oil Revolution*. Under Review.

Voter Responses to Climate Adaptation in High-Risk Communities (with Hanno Hilbig and António Valentim). Revise & Resubmit, American Journal of Political Science.

Climate Exposure Drives Firm Political Behavior: Evidence From Earnings Calls and Lobbying Data* (with Fiona Bare and Vincent Heddesheimer). Early View, American Journal of Political Science. 2026.

Landmine Clearance and Economic Development: Evidence from Multispectral Satellite Imagery, Nighttime Lights, and Conflict Events in Afghanistan (with Ariel BenYishay, Rachel Sayers, Kunwar Singh, and Madeleine Walker). Journal of Development Economics. 2026.

• [Blog: The First Tranche]

Highway to the Forest? Land Governance and the Siting and Environmental Impacts of Chinese Government-Funded Road Building in Cambodia (with Ariel BenYishay and Bradley Parks). Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. 2023.

• [Policy Brief: AidData]

Linking Local Infrastructure Development and Deforestation: Evidence from Satellites and Administrative Data (with Ariel BenYishay and Bradley Parks). Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. 2021.

• [Blog: The First Tranche 1,2]

Works in Progress

Crude Realignment: Energy Dependence and Foreign Policy Divergence after the Shale Revolution*.

Access to Sovereign Credit Markets and Trade Policy, with Layna Mosley.

Resource Curse in Reverse? Local Political Effects of Transitions from Fossil Fuels, with Alex Gazmararian, Luke Sanford, and Tyler Simko.

Explaining Public Support for Special Interests, with Fiona Bare, Alex Gazmararian, and Vincent Heddesheimer.

Software

stylest2: An R package for estimating speaker distinctiveness, with Arthur Spirling and Leslie Huang.
Available on CRAN. 2024.

Policy Research

Prospects for Venezuelan Debt Restructuring: A Trump Bump. (PSFL Policy Brief 25-1). 2025.

How Do Governments Respond to Persistently High Commodity Prices. (PSFL Policy Brief 24-2). 2024.

Building on a Foundation Stone: The Long-Term Impacts of a Local Infrastructure and Governance Program in Cambodia (with Ariel BenYishay, Bradley Parks, Rachel Trichler, Daniel Aboagye, and Punwath Prum). (Stockholm: Swedish EBA, AidData, and Open Development Cambodia). 2019.

• [Media: Dagens Nyheter, Blog: The First Tranche]