I’m a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Research Associate at the Center of the Politics of Development. Two interconnected themes run through my work: how civilians experience violence, and how they navigate loyalties between state and non-state actors in their search for protection.

My current research examines when and why civilians form militias during civil wars, and what happens when the state chooses to legally recognize some of these groups. I draw on a mix of archival research, interviews, and quantitative evidence from Colombia.

Another interest of mine is developing and contributing to open-source software. I’ve worked on R packages for experimental designs and Bayesian methods for causal inference.