My research is focused on the study of political and gender-based violence, political parties, social movements and contentious politics, and ethnic and gender politics in Africa and South Asia. I am a mixed-methods researcher: my work combines insights from in-depth, multi-sited fieldwork with analyses of quantitative conflict datasets. Through such approaches, I seek to uncover both broad patterns of violence and trace the causal mechanisms that generate conflict. I am also interested in the philosophy of social science and in small-N cross-regional comparisons.

My first book, Playing with Fire, develops a theoretical and empirical account of the relationship between elites, political parties, and party-based violence. This research is based on a cross-regional comparison of Kenya and India with subnational comparisons in the two countries.

A second long-term project seeks to explain why some incidents of sexual violence result in mass protests while others do not. I am especially interested in understanding how the efforts of feminist activists and media reporters inform ordinary citizens' willingness to take to the streets. I have completed initial fieldwork for this project in India and South Africa, where I am studying variations in public responses to a number of lethal rapes. I expect to conduct further research in both countries in 2024. 

To date, my research has taken me to Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Cambodia, India, and Nepal where I have studied various facets of conflict and conflict resolution. I have also conducted policy analysis for the World Bank and the United Nations, and my writing and analyses have appeared in public-facing outlets such as the Monkey Cage blog at The Washington Post, The Conversation (Africa), Deutsche Welle, and Vox.