I am an Assistant Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science at the University of Miami.
I hold a PhD in Political Science from Columbia University and an MA in Strategic Studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). In 2015-16 I was Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School’s Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance (Princeton University)
My research interests cover a broad range of topics at the intersection between International Relations, Security Studies, and Comparative Politics: civil war dynamics (in particular infighting and cooperation among rebel groups), counterinsurgency, civilian victimization and terrorism, coercion theory, non-violent resistance, natural resources and conflict, and the psychology of preventive war.
My book Conflict Among Rebels: Why Insurgent Groups Fight Each Other (forthcoming with Columbia University Press) explains why and under what circumstances rebel groups pitted against a common enemy (the government) fight one other.
My academic pieces have been published in Security Studies, International Security, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Middle East Policy, Parameters, African Security Review, The International Spectator. I wrote opinion and policy pieces for the blogs of The National Interest, The Washington Post, and Vox.
I previously worked as research analyst at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and at the World Bank’s Development Economics Research Group in Washington, DC.
I was born and raised in Italy, where I lived until I graduated from college. In my free time I spearfish and hit tennis balls.
