I am an Assistant Professor of Political Science, International & Public Affairs and Watson Institute Assistant Professor of China Studies at Brown University.

My research focuses on international security and Chinese foreign policy, with a particular interest in how bureaucracy shapes state behavior. My first book, Bureaucracies at War (under contract with Cambridge University Press), explores how institutional relationships between political leaders and their national security bureaucracies affect the risk of miscalculation when states are deciding between war and peace.

Other research projects employ qualitative, statistical, and experimental methods to address theoretical puzzles regarding the politics of advisers, diplomatic and military organizations, and international security. Much of my research is substantively focused on improving our understanding of national security decision-making in the People's Republic of China.

A second book project, supported by a grant from the Smith Richardson Foundation, explores how domestic politics shapes threat perceptions, arming, and international rivalry.

I received a PhD in political science from Harvard University and held postdoctoral fellowships at the Belfer Center International Security Program and Harvard-Columbia China and the World Program. My research has been supported by the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Institute for Strategic and Conflict Studies at George Washington University, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, and the Institute for Quantitative Social Science. I am currently a Term Member on the Council on Foreign Relations.

Previously, I served as a military intelligence officer, with assignments in Afghanistan, US Cyber Command, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

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Image: Tiananmen Square - 2005