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Welcome!  I am an Assistant Professor in Politics at Bates College.  I received my PhD in Political Science from MIT in 2026.  

I study comparative and American political economy, social policy, crisis governance, public administration, and institutional change in the advanced industrialized democracies.  

My book project—The Liberal Welfare State in Crisis: Risk, Relief, and State Capacity—examines a paradox of governance in liberal market economies:  states that invest minimally in social protections in ordinary times often intervene extraordinarily when collective crises—such as pandemics, financial crises, and recurrent natural disasters—strike.  I examine how the inherited architecture and politics of welfare institutions shape these emergency responses, and why temporary infusions of money, attention, and administrative activity often fail to convert into durable institutional change in the social safety net.  

My broader research agenda examines the politics of collective risk and social protection over the long term, including disaster relief within systems of fiscal federalism; beliefs about the proper role of the state in "everyday" vs. "exceptional" times; and the implications of discretionary crisis spending on the logic of fiscal conservatism.

My work has been supported by the NSF/APSA DDRIG, the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, the Consortium on the American Political Economy, the Oxford Global Priorities Institute, and an MIT Presidential Graduate Fellowship.  It has received prizes from APSA's sections on American Political Economy and State Politics & Policy, as well as from NEPSA.

I hold an AB in History of Art and Architecture summa cum laude from Harvard and a Master of City Planning degree from MIT.  I grew up in the Bay Area, Vancouver, and Seoul.  I am mom to my American bully Luna.