About Me

Born and raised in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri, I am a Midwesterner at heart, but I have had the privilege of experiencing personal and professional growth in many different places. Above all, I am a devoted partner to a loving spouse and an accomplished translator.

Currently, I am an assistant professor of International Relations and Korean Studies at Leiden University.

I am also a senior editor at SinoNK.com, a senior fellow at the European Centre for North Korean Studies at the University of Vienna, and a non-resident fellow in the Innovation Policy Lab at the University of Toronto.

I teach undergraduate and graduate courses on research methodology, comparative politics, IR, and area studies.

Trained as a political scientist, I conduct research on migration and governance, nations and nationalism, and international organization. I am particularly interested in the relationship between nationalism and political institutions.

My work relies primarily on surveys and experimental designs to analyze public opinion and political behavior, but I also use computational approaches to analyze text as data, including topic modeling and other natural language processing techniques. I am currently exploring how large language models (LLMs) can augment or extend conventional methods in the study of political discourse.

I earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Toronto, an M.A. in Global Affairs and Policy from Yonsei University, and a B.A. in Political Science from Harding University.

Read more about my current research at the Projects page, and find my latest publications at the Publications page.

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