Welcome to my personal website for all of my research, data, and scripts. I’m an Investigator at InSight Crime and a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. I’m mainly focued on organized crime in Latin America and using data to communicate complex stories. My academic research has focused on what can lead to positive peace with a particular focus on reducing criminal violence in postconflict states. I also do work regarding the effects of peacekeeping on public health, how recruitment strategies affect group behavior, and counterinsurgency policy analysis. In addition to my substantive interests, I’m interested in quantitative methodologies, including bayesian analysis, machine learning, text analysis, quasi-experimental methods, data scraping, and GIS, and leaening languages. I’m fluent in šŗšø English and šŗš¾ Spanish, my š«š· French is decent, and I’m learning š§š· Portuguese.
Book
I’m working on a book designed to take researchers that are already proficient in STATA, and show them how to do the same analyses in R. The hope is that by starting with what the reader already understands and showing how to replicate their code in R, the transition to open source software will be gentle. After covering the basics, the book then moves on to more R specific lessons that may introduce techniques that aren’t commonly seen in STATA.
Instructor University at Buffalo, SUNY (2020-2022)
PSC430 Human Rights - I taught an undergraduate course on human rights, what causes their violation, and what policies can prevent and reduce further violations
Research Assistant University at Buffalo, SUNY (2019-2021)
RA for Prof. Michelle Benson and Prof. Jacob Neiheisel. Assisted with data cleaning, merging, and analysis in R
Research Fellow University at Buffalo, SUNY (2018-2019)
Collected, coded, and organized data on United Nations Security Council Resolutions from 1989 to 2018. Funded through the Folke Bernadotte Academy (Principal Researcher: Prof. Michelle Benson)
Education
PhD Political Science University at Buffalo, SUNY (expected 2023)
Dissertation: The War Ends but the Killing Remains: Criminal Violence in Postconflict States
Chair: Prof. Jacob Kathman
Member: Prof. Michelle Benson
Member: Prof. Jacob Neiheisel
MA Political Science University at Buffalo, SUNY (2021)
CAS Data Analysis for Social Sciences University at Buffalo, SUNY (2020)
BA Music SUNY Fredonia (2014)
Jazz Studies Concentration
Spanish Minor
Publications
Peer-Reviewed
“Pursuing Peacekeepingās Many āPeacesā” (with Jake Kathman, Chhandosi Roy, and Colin Tucker). Accepted. International Peacekeeping.
“Civil War Battlefield Deaths, Rebel Power and Dissatisfaction” (with Jacek Kugler, Michelle Benson, and Chhandosi Roy).
“Media & Murder: The Effect of News Coverage on Postconflict Criminal Violence in Colombia”
“Rebels, Resources, & Homicide”
“Child Soldiers and Grown-Up Gangsters”
Conference Presentations
To Kill or Not to Kill: Strategic Civilian Victimization by Rebel Groups With Chhandosi Roy. Presented for Midwest Political Science Association, Online 2021.
Can UN Peacekeeping Improve Health Outcomes Long After the Shooting Stops? With Michelle Benson, Colin Tucker, and Chhandosi Roy. Presented during the Peace Science Society, Online 2020. Part of the workshop: What do we know about the United Nations after 75 years?.
Can UN Peacekeeping Improve Health Outcomes Long After the Shooting Stops? With Michelle Benson, Colin Tucker, and Chhandosi Roy. Presented for International Studies Association, Honolulu, HI 2020 (canceled due to Covid-19).
Tolerance and Terrorism in the United States. With RJ Haq. Presented for Institutions and Societies: Graduate Student Conference, Albany, NY 2019.
Neocolonialism and Transnational Terrorism: Territorial Causes. Presented during the Peace Science Society, Austin, TX 2018.
Book Project
A guide for those already proficient in STATA that would like to make the jump to open source programming using R. The chapters run through statistical techniques, from getting descriptive statistics, to advanced regression methods, and shows how to replicate what people would do in STATA using R. The later chapters adds some additional tricks that maybe new as well.
Teaching
Undergraduate
University at Buffalo, SUNY
PCS430: Human Rights (Spring 2022, Spring 2021, Fall 2020)
Prepared
Intro to Statistics with R
Bayesian Statistics
Conferece Attendence
Peace Science Society (International): 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018
International Studies Association: 2019
Midwest Political Science Association: 2021
Awards
University at Buffalo, SUNY (2021)
Paul D. Senese Graduate Student Award
Service
University at Buffalo, SUNY
Board Member, Graduate Student Association
Graduate School Grievance Pool
Political Violence Research Group
Reviewer
International Interactions
Software
UCDP ID translations
For R and Python. Translates between the old and new UCDP IDs for actors, conflicts, and dyads.
For R. This builds off of the base-R merge() function to provide information about how well the two datasets merged. It adds a variables merge to the dataset with information on each row (similar to the variable _merge in STATA), as well as an output summarizing the merge.
Click to Read | March 6, El PaĆs published a report on corruption, environmental degradation, and media repression in Guatemala. March 8, the Guatemalan government passed a law criminalizing abortion, limiting sex ed, and banning marriage equality. Instead of protecting Guatemalans from the harm caused by nickel mines, Congress decided to crack down on personal freedoms.
The Law for the Protection of Life and the Family (Ley para la ProtecciĆ³n de la Vida y la Familia) defines several norms and penalties. It delineates a family as a man, a woman, and their children, increases the penalties for all abortions, bans gay marriage, and prohibits public and private educators from teaching sexual diversity, āgender ideology,ā or anything other than heterosexual sex as normal.
Falling on International Womenās Day, the legislation comes just after Forbidden Stories revealed the destruction caused by Russian-Swiss mining company Solway. Operating in Guatemalaās Izabal Nature Reserve, Solway has extracted thousands of tonnes of nickel for processing in Ukraine.
Instead of investigating the corruption and abuse within its borders, the Guatemalan government has gone after Carlos Choc, a Mayan reporter from El Estor. Heās been threatened, had his house broken into and his dog killed; legal charges were brought against him, followed by threats to take him from his children. Chocās crime? He photographed Carlos Maazās corpse lying in the street. Maaz was killed after protesting a mine that turned the waters he fished red, shrinking the catches he and others relied on. The police claimed that they did not kill anyone while breaking up the protestāChoc proved they lied.
Connections to the mine penetrate all levels of the Guatemalan government, from local officials to President Alejandro Giamettei. El PaĆs reported a message from the mineās director to Giamettei requesting action to end protests in El Estor. Two weeks later, 500 soldiers plus antiriot police arrived to end the resistance.
Instead of standing up for its people, the Guatemalan government has decided to stand up for mining. The effects on the environment are hitting indigenous peoples hardest. The state has demonstrated a consistent apathy towards the very people it is supposed to represent, and now they are further constricting individual freedoms in the name of protecting āthe family.ā
Homicide Rates
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Colombia, Jamaica, South Africa, Honduras, and El Salvador have had the worst homicide rates since 1990. Here I visualize how the rates have changed over 18 years.
With Michelle Benson, Colin Tucker, and Chhandosi Roy.
Ghobarah, Huth, and Russett (2003) show that civil wars can continue to cause harm postconflict as the destruction of heath institutions lead to decreased healthy life expectancy. We replicate the initiation results while adding in a measure of peacekeeping to determine whether the presence of a mission can reduce the negative impact of conflict. We then analyze new data with additional years and improved measures. Are initial findings support the idea the peacekeeping can reduce the damaging effects of conflict on health.
Accepted to International Studies Association 2020 in Honolulu, HI (canceled due to Covid-19)
Presented at Peace Science Society 2020, online as part of the workshop: What do we know about the United Nations after 75 years?
Methods:
R: Statistical analysis, quasi-experimental methods, missing data problems, and data visualization
To Kill or Not to Kill: Strategic Civilian Victimization by Rebel Groups
With Chhandosi Roy.
We argue that whether or not it is in the strategic interest of a rebel group to target civilians depends on who the civilians are and how the group recruits. Using a novel dataset on rebel recruitment, we test whether how a group select recruit for the population correlates which the amount of one-sided violence a group commits.
Methods:
R: Statistical analysis, quasi-experimental methods and data visualization
These are my attempts at simulating the effects of peacekeeping operations. I’m starting simple and building complexity as I go. Currently, app.py is a simulation that looks at the monthly effect of PKO troops on battle-related deaths based on the findings of Hultman, Kathman, & Shannon (2014). It creates a web app using streamlit which allows the user to change the values with sliders.
The media we consume effects our beliefs, attitude, and actions. Using coverage of the FARC-EP in Colombian newspapers, I see whether the coverage correlates with subnational variation in homicides since the signing of the peace agreement in 2016.
This paper builds off of the organizational explanation for violence against civilians proposed in the book Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence, by Jeremy Weinstein. I test whether the dynamics that lead to increased one-sided violence by rebel groups during a conflict continue to increase violence when the conflict ends.
I’ve found this to be intuitive, without being overly mathy, while still
being rigurours and covering a number of useful topics. The author has also
made lectures freely availble here.
Bayesian Methods in Political Science: Introduction to the Virtual Issue
by Jeff Gill
The first ~2.5 pages provide a consice summary of how Bayesian methods compare to a likelihood approach, and how political science is Bayesian - even if political sciencets don’t acknowledge it.
Political Analysis, 2012, Vol.20(3), p.1-9
Bayesian Estimation and Inference: A Userās Guide
by Michael J. Zyphur and Frederick L. Oswald
A concise summary of what Bayesian inference is, how it contrasts with frequentism, it’s advantages, disadvantages, and how to apply it.
This book covers just about everything someone doing applied statistics needs to
know, with plenty of examples in R. The author have since updated the first part of the book (see the next book on this list), but the updated second part
isn’t out yet.
The aforementioned update to Data Analysis Using Regression and
Multilevel/Hierarchical Models. I haven’t gotten all the way throught this yet,
but so far I’m a big fan of how the authors present the informantion and the
visualizations they use. It seems more intuitive to me than the earlier book.
by Andrew Gelman, John Carlin, Hal Stern, David Dunson, Aki Vehtari,
and Donald Rubin.
This seems to be the book that’s most oriented to those with strong mathematical
backgrounds. The PDF is availible for non-comercial purposes, and Aki Vehtari has posted
course material.
This book doesn’t teach you how to do Bayesian statistics, but it’s an excellent
tour of the development of Bayesian methods, and their successes and
applications is a wide variety of fields. Sharon Bertsch McGrayne does a great
job developing the difference between Bayesian and frequentist definitions of
probability and showing obstacles that kept Bayesian methods from being the
default for so long.
Software
UCDP ID translations
Packages for R and Python. Translates between the old and new UCDP IDs for actors,
conflicts, and dyads.
For R. This builds off of the base-R merge() function to provide information about how well the two datasets merged. It adds a variables merge to the dataset with information on each row (similar to the variable _merge in STATA), as well as an output summarizing the merge.
