My research focuses on state building and its effects on local development and conflict, with a focus on twentieth century Africa. Furthermore, I work on ethnic politics in Africa, in particular analysing patterns of ethnic electoral violence and favouritism. My ongoing work assess the reciprocal relationship between the geographies of ethnic identities and (sub-)national political borders.
To carry out my research, I use innovative computational methods to collect large, mostly geospatial datasets and derive new measures of state reach, colonial indirect rule, and ethnic geographies. My research has been published in International Organization, the British Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Peace Research.
Before joining the DPIR, I was a post-doctoral researcher at the International Conflict Research Group at ETH Zurich, where I earned my PhD in 2019. I have been a visiting researcher at Harvard University in 2017 and 2020.