Welcome to my website. I am a Ph.D. candidate in international relations and comparative politics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Houston. I was a 2022-2023 Oskar Morgenstern Fellow and 2023-2024 Adam Smith Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. I have been a lecturer at University of Houston, Houston Community College, and Our Lady of the Lake University .

My research endeavors revolve around a central theme: the broad array of threats that democracy faces, from both international and internal sources, with a specific emphasis on the pernicious influence of authoritarian politics at the intersection of international and domestic affairs including both conflict and political economy considerations. I am also interested in political science methodology and deep learning.

My dissertation research focuses on signaling to domestic audiences as an explanation of threatening behavior by autocratic regimes in the form of initiation of military conflict and sponsorship of non-state armed groups targeting foreign nations. My other ongoing research examines the effects of autocracy led economic integration efforts, specifically the Cuban and Venezuelan led Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), and a project on the application of machine learning for measuring the leadership politics of dictatorship and the behavior of authoritarian leaders.

_{This website predates my graduates studies, so to avoid breaking links it includes sections devoted to personal interests.}