I am an empirical political scientist studying questions of democratic participation and violent conflict, primarily in Latin America. I am a Research Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies. I am also a Research Affiliate of the Poverty, Violence and Governance Lab. I earned my PhD in Political Science from New York University’s Department of Politics.

My main focus has been on political solutions to violence and the electoral participation of parties with violent origins. I study how guarantees of power shape their political mobilization, building on scholarship on reservations and power-sharing. I also study strategies to promote former rebels’ democratic engagement and examine the consequences of their participation for democracy. I have conducted novel experiments, surveys, and interviews in Colombia with ex-combatants, former commanders, civilian militants and peace agreement negotiators. I also use within-country electoral observational data as well as original cross-national data on 120 rebel parties. My second more recent research stream focuses on the democratic mobilization and representation of groups victimized by violence in Colombia and Mexico.  My work has been supported by the Folke Bernadotte Academy, the Institute for Humane Studies, the American Political Science Association Centennial Center, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (NYU-UR) and is published in the Journal of Politics.

I have deeply enjoyed teaching throughout my career and am currently a primary instructor for the DDRL Honors Program at Stanford. While at NYU I taught courses on Comparative Politics, Political Economy of Development in Latin America, Senior Honors Seminars, International Relations, and Insurgency and Counterinsurgency. In 2021, I was honored to receive the Dean’s Outstanding Teaching Award. 

I also have experience conducting policy research for a variety of organizations, including for the United Nations University Center for Policy Research on ex-combatant reintegration into civilian life, the Inter-American Development Bank on the evolution of Venezuela’s energy infrastructure, US-based think tank on informing US foreign policy towards Latin America, and a Caracas-based organization on state-sponsored killings and police militarization. 

See my most recent CV here.