Born and raised in the sleepy suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri, I am a Midwestern at heart but have grown personally and professionally across a wide range of places, including small-town Arkansas, the megalopolis Seoul, and southern Ontario. I am an avid gamer, an intermittent runner, and a committed partner to a loving spouse.

Currently, I am a Lecturer and Vice-Director for the Study Program in East Asian Economy and Society (EcoS) for the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Vienna. I am also the Vice-Director of the European Centre for North Korean Studies (ECNK). I teach graduate-level courses in international relations, comparative politics, and research methodology.

As a comparativist specializing in East Asian affairs and the Koreas, my core research interests include citizenship and migration, democracy and authoritarianism, and the political economy of entrepreneurship. Additionally, I contribute to studies in innovation policy and the dynamics of firm growth, using cases primarily in North America.

My research mainly uses surveys and experimental methods to understand public opinion, but I also work with administrative data and mixed-method approaches for analyzing qualitative data.

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 projects at the Research page, and find my latest publications at the Publications page.