Hello! I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of North Texas. My primary research focuses on authoritarian nostalgia and related political behavior in post-authoritarian democracies. I further develop research projects in the intersection of domestic and international politics of China’s expansion in Asia. My regional focus is on South Korea and other Asian democracies. I introduce various research methods in answering key research questions, including experiments and text and image analysis. I received my PhD in Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2022 and MA and BA at Korea University. Before joining UNT, I was a Senior Lecturer and Assistant Director of the Data Analytics and Policy Program and a faculty affiliate in the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. My research has appeared in Democratization, International Journal of Press/Politics, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of East Asian Studies, Party Politics, Political Behavior, Social Science Quarterly, and World Development.

My research has received support from various sources, including a Faculty Grant Award from the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, a Taiwan Fellowship from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan, a Doctoral Fellowship from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, and multiple institutions at the University of Illinois.

Research interests:

• Authoritarian nostalgia
• Comparative political behavior
• Post-authoritarian democracies
• Political economy in Asia
• Computational research methods