I am currently an associate senior lecturer (assistant professor) at the  Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University.  For the 2024-25 academic year, I am also a visiting scholar in the Political Science Department at UC Berkeley. Previously, I was an assistant professor in the Politics Department at the University of San Francisco (2018-2021), a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Government at Wesleyan University (2017-2018), and a postdoctoral fellow at the Buffett Institute for Global Studies at Northwestern University from 2015-2017.  

 

My research sits at the intersection of international relations and comparative politics and focuses on the causes and consequences of electoral and communal violence, elections, land rights, climate change, and forced migration, with a regional focus on sub-Saharan Africa.

 

My recent book Political Violence in Kenya: Land, Elections, and Claim-making (Cambridge University Press, 2020), examines the relationship between land rights and patterns of electoral violence in Kenya. The dissertation on which the book is based won the Best Fieldwork Award from APSA's Comparative Democratization Section and an honorable mention for Best Dissertation in African politics. The book draws on 15 months of multi-method fieldwork that I conducted across Kenya between 2010-2013.

 

My research has received support from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the Strauss Center for International Law and Security (UT-Austin), the United States Institute of Peace (Jennings Randolph Peace Fellowship), the Social Science Research Council (IDRF), National Science Foundation (NSF DDIG), and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

 

In addition to research in Kenya, I have also conducted extensive fieldwork in Ghana (2011-2012), Malawi (2007-2008), and Uganda (2019). I received my PhD in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2015 and my B.A from Smith College in 2007.