The first-ever politics course I took in my undergraduate degree was Comparative Politics -- and the rest was history! I am particularly interested in examining how these themes and phenomena apply across space and time. 

Most conflicts are intrastate conflicts, often between different ethnic groups.  As someone interested in comparative conflicts, observing the way that ethnic conflicts have emerged or been exacerbated by differing State structures and capacity, or particularly around the provision of goods, is a particular interest of mine. This was a particular interest developed at my time at the Carter Center, Institute for Developing Nations, and U.S. Agency for International Development. Most of the classes and guest lectures, as well as talks I have given have been on the topic of ethnic violence. 

See examples of projects associated with Ethnic Violence below.

I have taken several courses on Gender Violence, including a (1) graduate course with the Rollins School of Public Health entitled "Gender Violence," (2) Sexual Violence and Humanitarian Interventions, (3) Sex, Power, Culture (with the Women and Gender Studies Department), and (4) Human Rights (undergraduate) and (5) Human Rights (graduate), and (6) Political Economy of Development. I have also conducted a number of projects on gender violence tagged below.

Looking at how States particularly enact forms of violence, physically, epistemically, and structurally,  is of particular interest to me, and almost every research project I have undertaken has touched upon this theme in some way.  Studying the State as an actor, its at-times incongruent actions at multiple scales of interaction, and its strategic uses of violence has been a primary focus of my time at the University of Oxford, where I have taken an options course on The Nexus of Political Violence.  An example of some of the projects on State Repression I have worked on are linked below.

I have taken a number of courses on the International Political Economy of Development, and this is also the primary focus of my coursework for my MPhil in Development Studies at the University of Oxford.  I scored a distinction in my exam for (Political) Economics within the department, which has been by far my highest score so far. During my time at Emory, I also took (1) International Political Economy and (2) the Political Economy of Development.