I am Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Among other topics, I study secrecy and intelligence and their relationship to International Relations theory, international security, and global governance. Much of my research explores how governments and other actors selectively reveal and conceal what they do. I am fascinated by the disjuncture this creates between the “front stage” and “back stage” of international politics. I am writing a new book on the logistical side of intelligence collection, focusing on the physical infrastructure states must build to do foreign surveillance.

My first book, published in 2018 by Princeton University Press, analyzed how states use covert forms of military intervention to contain the escalation potential of modern war. My second book, co-authored with Allison Carnegie, assessed the disclosure dilemmas that states face when intelligence and other kinds of sensitive information are important to the work of international organizations. My third book will be on what I am calling “intelligence infrastructure” — i.e., the physical sites and installations which are required to operate most modern surveillance systems — and its importance to geopolitics.

Recent research has addressed other topics beyond secrecy. Some use declassified intelligence material to see how racial tropes have influenced the work of foreign policy bureaucracies, when and why elderly leaders are seen as senile, the domestic politics of the U.S. initial participation in postwar international order, and why the U.S. chose to debut atomic weaponry in an especially lethal way. My research has been published or is forthcoming in International Organization, American Journal of Political Science, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Politics, Security Studies, and European Journal of International Relations. You can view my CV here and hear an overview of some of this scholarship in this podcast episode.

I also serve as a co-editor for the Cornell Studies in Security Affairs series by Cornell University Press.

I graduated with a Ph.D. in Political Science from Ohio State University in 2013 and joined the faculty of University of Chicago in 2015. I have held research fellowships at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University, the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at George Washington University, and the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.