I have independently conducted field research for my own projects in politically and economically diverse environments, both as an undergraduate and a graduate student. With the support of a NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement grant, I conducted elite interviews and archival data collection from Summer 2010 to Spring 2011 in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. During that time, I interviewed ninety total legislators, former Bolivian President Carlos Mesa, and former President of the 2008 Ecuadorian Constituent Assembly Alberto Acosta.

 

 

 

 

 

I also collected legislative debates from the legislative archives and worked with local academics. While in Ecuador during Spring 2011, I was a visiting researcher at the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (Latin American School of Social Sciences) where I also gave a graduate lecture on research design.

 

During Summer 2008, Spring 2009, and Summer 2009 I performed archival research and trained student-coders in Europe (Denmark, The Netherlands, and Sweden) while under the direction of Dr. Lanny Martin. As an undergraduate, I conducted legislative interviews in the Morelos state legislative assembly in Mexico for my senior honors thesis. This research earned runner-up in the Pi Sigma Alpha national competition for best senior honors thesis.