Welcome 欢迎 환영합니다! I am a predoctoral fellow at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at George Washington University and a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of Pennsylvania. My research focuses on crisis escalation, coercive diplomacy, and the national security strategies of China, the United States, and South Korea.

My dissertation explains unwanted crisis escalation and conflict with a novel theory of provocation. I test my theory at the individual-level with a survey experiment, and develop three game-theoretic models to analyze how provocation affects crisis escalation and the outbreak of war. Two case studies on China using primary sources demonstrate the dangers of provocation historically, and the conclusion discusses policy implications with reference to the South China Sea today. More on my research can be found here.