I am an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Research Methods at the Monterey Institute of International Studies' school of International Policy and Management and a Research Fellow at the Naval Postgraduate School's CORE Lab. Prior to this, I served as an Adjunct Professor in the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and as a Senior Policy Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh's Matthew B. Ridgeway Center for International Security Studies. This website is designed to provide a brief introduction to me and my research interests.

I'll be adding some more detailed information about my research as well as links to project photos and other interesting offshoots as time allows.

In the meantime, you are welcome to look at some of my work, or browse the links that I have on this page.

Research Interests

• Application of social network analysis and psychological tools such as the repertory grid technique to understand cognitive processes and their effect on macro-level organizational behavior and policy making
• Measuring change in national identity and meaning processing over time in developing, newly independent, and post-communist states.
• Eliciting cognitive changes associated with political and administrative development through primary data collection and network analysis to assess implications of regime change, ethnic conflict, and minority or multiethnic populations
• Development of analytic and psychological tools to evaluate cognition-based theory (e.g. Paul Sabatier’s (1993) advocacy coalition theory, Aaron Wildavsky’s and Mary Douglas’ (1993) cultural theory) while minimizing researcher bias

Some Recent Work Experience

I am currently an Assistant Professor at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and I am pursuing a variety of research initiatives in the areas such as social networks, security, and public health. I am also a Research Fellow at the CORE Lab at the Naval Postgraduate School. Until 2008, I served as a Senior Policy Fellow with the Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies and teaching in the graduate and undergraduate programs in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. While conducting my doctoral work, I had the opportunity to teach in a University of Pittsburgh Master's program for mid career professionals in Macedonia. I subsequently held a posting as a visiting faculty member in South East European University (SEEU), a multicultural university in Macedonia that is dedicated to increasing ethnic inclusion and improving the quality of the country's public higher education.

In addition to conducting my own dissertation research, I created a research internship for advanced undergraduate students, many of whom have since accepted positions with a public research firm or have gone on to pursue graduate studies in the US and elsewhere. I also collaborated with faculty from SEEU and other universities in Macedonia to develop initatives for establishing public research institutes and community development programs.

My activities and interests in Macedonia did not end with the completion of my dissertation work. I maintain contact with a number of close friends and colleagues there and I have participated as a Visiting Professor of public policy in the International Summer University in Macedonia for the past two years.