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 and an Adam Smith Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. My research interests are authoritarian and nondemocratic politics, leadership ideology, and international politic economy. I am also interested in political methodology, game theory, and deep learning.

My research endeavors revolve around a central theme: the multifaceted threats that democracy faces, emanating from both international and internal origins, with a specific emphasis on the pernicious influence of authoritarian politics at the intersection of global and domestic affairs.

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. Other ongoing research examines the the effects of autocracy led economic integration efforts beginning with the Cuban and Venezuelan led Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).

I’m working on the application of deep learning and Natural Language Processing for solving issues of non-transparency in 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.