I am a PhD candidate in Political Science at Vanderbilt University, with concentrations in Comparative and American Politics. My research lies at the intersection of political economy and comparative political behavior, with a specific emphasis on migration, identity politics, and democratic accountability in South Asia.

My dissertation – When Exit Subverts Voice: How Internal Migration Disrupts Political Accountability in The Hinterland, examines how internal economic migration reshapes politics and citizen-state relations in sending societies. My work triangulates observational, experimental, and qualitative approaches, using diverse data sources such as panel designs, original household surveys, experiments, focus groups, and sustained ethnographic fieldwork. My dissertation has received generous funding from the American Political Science Association, American Institute of Indian Studies, and SurveyCTO.

My ongoing projects further explore themes related to migration and state-society relations in low- and middle-income countries. One project explores how migration informs intra-household differences in social norms, identity attachments, and political preferences among migrants and left-behind family members. Another investigates how exposure to slow-onset disasters, such as recurrent floods and droughts, reshapes citizen claim-making strategies in regions facing disproportionately high levels of climate risk.

Prior to graduate school, I worked for a survey research organization in New Delhi, where I supervised public opinion surveys across ten Indian states. I am currently affiliated with the the Center for Global Democracy and LAPOP Lab at Vanderbilt University, which conducts the flagship AmericasBarometer among other public opinion studies in the Americas.