Hello!

Inquisitive. Epistemological humility. Interdisciplinary. These three words best describe my research approach. Motivated by the unknown, I have dedicated my graduate and professional career to advancing my computational skill set to better understand the socio-political dynamics from an empirical perspective.

I’m a computational social scientist in training and a Ph.D. candidate in Security Studies at the School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs at the University of Central Florida. I explore non-traditional security threats from a comparative lens. I’m particularly interested in how infectious disease outbreaks can impact socio-political behaviors and influence individuals to engage in politically-motivated armed violence. I rely heavily on geographic information systems, advanced statistical analysis, survey research design, (interactive) data visualization, and epidemic simulation modeling to help gain a better understanding of politically-motivated violent behaviors, in tandem with novel and reemerging infectious disease diffusion processes.

My dissertation focuses on three interrelated topics in public health security:

  1. To what extent does civil violence affect the transmission of HIV?
  2. To what extent does Ebola affect the frequency of civil violence?
  3. To what extent do communal network configurations and levels of civil violence affect the transmission of Ebola/HIV? (Epidemic simulation modeling).

Contact: See CV.