I am an Assistant Professor of Political Science and the Aung San Suu Kyi Endowed Chair in Asian Democracy at the University of Louisville’s department of political science and the Center for Asian Democracy. I study the political economy of development with a regional focus on South Asia, and a substantive emphasis on religion, gender, party politics, and democratization.

My research examines the underlying causes of the ascendance of majoritarian and populist movements, and their implications for the political inclusion of marginalized groups, particularly women and ethnic minorities. Parallel research agendas investigate the dissemmination and sustenance of political ideologies, as well as the links between electoral institutions and democratic health.

My research has been published in Science Advances, and by Cambridge University Press. I am currently working on a book project on how religiously conservative parties mobilize women. This research has received several awards, including best dissertation awards from the American Political Science Association’s organized sections in Political Economy (Mancur Olson award, 2024); Religion and Politics (Aaron Wildavsky award, 2024); Political Communication (Thomas E. Patterson award, 2024); and Women, Gender, and Politics Research (2024). Prior to this, I co-authored a meta-analysis of six field experiments on information and accountability which was published in Science Advances, and as a chapter in Information, Accountability, and Cumulative Learning: Lessons from Metaketa I (Cambridge University Press), adjudged as the Best Book by the APSA’s Experimental Research section.

Prior to this, I was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. I earned my PhD at the University of California, Berkeley in 2023, where I was a Research Associate at the Center for the Politics of Development.

My research has been generously supported by the APSA-NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant, the APSA Centennial Center’s Women and Politics Fund, the Weiss Family Fund, the J-PAL Governance Initiative, the Global Religion Research Initiative, the Governance and Local Development Program, and UC Berkeley’s Graduate Division, Insitute of South Asia Studies, Center for Contemporary India, and Center for Right-Wing Studies.