I am the Director of Engagement at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies on the National Defense University campus. At the Africa Center, I conduct research, design and support executive level seminars, and foster ongoing engagement on security challenges with African security sector officials after they become alumni of our programs. Previously, as Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Associate Professor, I contributed to the institution’s growth and effectiveness by developing and leading portfolios on rule of law/security sector governance and countering transnational organized crime. I am also a Council on Foreign Relations Term Member.
Earlier in my career, I was an Advisor in the Research, Evaluation, and Learning Division of the American Bar Associate Rule of Law Initiative. I also taught in university and practitioner settings. A West and Central Africa practitioner who is fluent in French and proficient in Wolof, I focus principally on regional security governance issues and have in-country experience as an academic and a practitioner in over 20 West, Central, and Southern African countries, as well as in Pakistan and Tajikistan.
My practitioner research and academic work is on the comparative politics of Africa, including a focus on Senegal, where I spent eighteen months conducting fieldwork for my book, Party Proliferation and Political Contestation in Africa: Senegal in Comparative Perspective (2020, Palgrave Macmillan). Fieldwork and language acquisition have deeply informed my research and teaching not only at the Africa Center and as a course coordinator at the State Department Foreign Service Institute, but also as the leader of advanced undergraduate courses of my own design at Washington University of St. Louis and as a teaching assistant at Harvard University.
I have been a Penn Kemble Democracy Forum Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, a Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies Public Fellow, a Postdoctoral Fellow at Washington University in St. Louis, a West Africa Research Association Postdoctoral Grantee, and the West Africa Course Coordinator at the State Department Foreign Service Institute. My research has been supported by two U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships, the West Africa Research Association, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, and the American Political Science Association (APSA).
I hold a Ph.D. (2014) and M.A. (2010) in political science from Harvard University, where I was a Graduate Student Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs as well as a Harvard Sciences-Po Exchange Fellow. Previously, as a Fulbright Scholar, I earned a post-Graduate Certificate in International Politics from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (2007), with a specialization in “Europe, Conflict Resolution, and Peacebuilding.” I have a B.A. summa cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis (2006).