Greetings! I am a PhD candidate in Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California.

I specialize in international security and political psychology. My research interests lies in the application of cultural psychology to status seeking and conflict; specifically applying the typology of dignity-honor-face to international security. My primary focus is on face culture and how it affects state behaviors in East Asia and Southeast Asia. My dissertation project, “Face Culture and East Asian International Relations”, examines how saving or losing face can influence peace and aggression in China-Southeast Asia relations. A secondary focus of my research is China-Southeast Asia relations and the South China Sea dispute.

I previously obtained a BA in Global Affairs at Yale-NUS College in Singapore where my honors thesis won the Tan Sing Meng Prize for Outstanding Capstone Project in China Studies.