Welcome! I am an incoming postdoctoral fellow at the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation in Washington, DC.

I study the interplay between conventional military strategy and nuclear weapons in U.S.-led alliances. My book project, Deterrence without the Bomb: Explaining Military Postures of Non-Nuclear U.S. Allies, investigates how U.S. allies shape their military postures in divergent ways while relying on the U.S. security guarantee and nuclear umbrella. The project builds on my Ph.D. dissertation, which received the 2025 Lucian Pye Award for Best Doctoral Thesis in Political Science at MIT.

My research broadly encompasses nuclear strategy, conventional military strategy, escalation dynamics, and the alliance politics of extended deterrence.

Previously, I was a Stanton Nuclear Security Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Project on Managing the Atom and the International Security Program, and a Hans J. Morgenthau Fellow at Notre Dame International Security Center. My work has been supported by the Stanton Foundation, MIT Center for International Studies, Stand Together Foundation, Northeast Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies, and the Korea Foundation.

I received my Ph.D. in Political Science from MIT, where I was also a member of its Security Studies Program. Prior to joining MIT, I earned an LL.M. in China Studies (Politics and International Relations) from the Yenching Academy of Peking University with support from Bai Xian Education Foundation, and a B.A. in Government, magna cum laude, from Harvard University. I also completed 21 months of military service in the Republic of Korea Army—first in the Maintenance Battalion of the 25th Infantry Division, and later with the Republic of Korea Horizontal Military Engineering Company during its deployment to the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) in Bor, Jonglei State.