Welcome to my homepage! I am currently an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and a faculty affiliate in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (AMES).

My primary research agenda focuses on state capacity and the construction of state power in China and Asia, drawing insights from both historical and contemporary perspectives. I am also broadly interested in authoritarianism and democratization, land and environmental politics, development and security in Asia, and contemporary politics in China and Taiwan. 

My research has appeared in Comparative Political Studies and Studies in Comparative International Development, while my quotes and commentaries have been featured in outlets such as Nikkei Asia, CNBC, the Guardian, and the Monkey Cage blog. I am currently working on a book manuscript tentatively titled Grassroots Origins of Regime Power: rural reform, state building, and political orders in Cold War Asia, which focuses on the transformative land redistribution campaigns implemented in China and Taiwan during the 1950s and their political legacies. 

Prior to Minnesota, I received my Ph.D. in political science at the University of Toronto (Canada). I was also a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA's Asia-Pacific Center, and held additional fellowships at Harvard University's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and Tsinghua University's Schwarzman College in Beijing, China. My research has been supported by various institutions, including the Wilson Center in Washington D.C., the Trudeau Centre for Peace, Conflict, and Justice and the Asian Institute at the University of Toronto, and the Overseas Young Chinese Forum Fieldwork Fellowship program.  I was also the recipient of the Cranford Pratt & Richard Sandbrook International Graduate Student Scholarship in Political Science and the Dr. David Chu Scholarship in Asia Pacific Studies at the University of Toronto. 

I completed my undergraduate degree in Political Science (with Honors) at the University of Chicago, and a masters degree in Regional Studies: East Asia at Harvard University. In college, I co-founded a summer field research project for mainland Chinese and Taiwanese students, which won a Kathryn Davis Projects for Peace Fellowship in 2010.