My primary research focuses on the importance of ethnicity in shaping both civil war and the integration of refugees during post-war displacement in Europe and states of the former Soviet Union. In particular, my book manuscript examines how ethnic group coherence structures secessionist outcomes and civil war following state collapse. This work has been supported by several sources, including Fulbright, the American Councils of Learned Societies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Science Foundation.
I also apply my work on ethnicity to examine politics in the United States, including projects focused on civic attitudes in engineering education and climate change adaptation. This work has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency. Our work in engineering education was recently honored with the 2023 Best Technical Paper Award for the ASCE Journal of Civil Engineering Education.
The nature of my work takes me to numerous places, including extensive time conducting research in the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and the Republic of Moldova. I have also taken short-term courses at the University of California – Berkeley and Lomonosov Moscow State University. Prior to coming to Iowa State I was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Conflict Resolution Institute at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies.