Biography
As a researcher, my work takes place at the intersection of American Politics, Historical Institutionalism, and Race, Ethnicity and Politics. I examine the structural mechanics underlying the historical process of settlement in the United States. My dissertation studies the growth of bureaucracy in 19th century America, with a specific focus on the development of the General Land Office. I explore the relationship between subnational and national elites to explain the expansion of centralized land office bureaucracy. I argue that, due to the relative weakness of the early American state, subnational actors had substantial influence on the shape and growth of national legislative and bureaucratic policymaking. I further analyze how this bureaucratic structure marginalized, dominated, and subsumed Black and indigenous people as part of the broader settler project.