About
I am a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan. My research examines the consequences of U.S. imperial governance and how disputes over sovereignty, land, and race can shape democracy within the United States and beyond it. My mixed-methods dissertation and book project, Governed Unequal: Democracy under Limited Sovereignty, centers the largest and most populous territory of the United States—Puerto Rico—to disentagle the effects of several sovereignty constraints on democratic governance. Through an analysis of gubernatorial debates from 2008 to 2024, focus groups conducted across the larger island, and three original surveys of the Puerto Rican public, I examine the mechanisms through which three key dimensions of limited sovereignty—autonomy, dependence, and displacement—shape accountability. I find that while the erosion of autonomy and the strategic mobilization of dependence help the New Progressive Party (PNP) maintain electoral dominance despite lacking popular support, concerns about displacement have emerged as a countervailing force. My research is supported by numerous grants and fellowships, including the NSF Graduate Fellowship.
In co-authored work, I explore political imagination and possibility among residents of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as the politics of U.S. imperialism and foreign policy.
