I am an Associate Professor of Political Science at UC Riverside. In 2022-2023, I was a Mellon Dean's Professor at UCR's Center for Ideas and Society. I study health interventions, politics, and public opinion—primarily in African countries. I received my Ph.D. in political science at UCLA, where I was a FLAS fellow in Kiswahili/African Studies. From 2008-2009, I was a Fulbright Scholar in Malawi. Before coming to UC Riverside, I held academic appointments at Smith College and Texas A&M University.

I am the editor-in-chief of Good Authority, a blog on politics and political science and the successor of TMC, which was published by The Washington Post. Only infrequently do I continue to post at my personal blog, haba na haba. 

In 2017, I started Ufahamu Africa, a podcast about life and politics on the continent, which I now co-host with Rachel Beatty Riedl.

In 2018, Cambridge University Press published my book, Doomed Interventions: The Failure of Global Responses to AIDS in Africa. Here is a review.

In 2022, I started the Minority Serving Institution Research Academy (MSIRA) with my UCR colleagues Jenn Merolla and Marissa Brookes.