Welcome! I am a Visiting Fellow in East Asian Legal Studies at Harvard Law School and an Ernest May Fellow in History and Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. I am also a PhD Candidate in History at Yale.

I study the relationship between law and economic growth. Drawing on my training as an historian, I explore the origins of the legal rules that govern international economic exchanges, as well as the institutions that participate in those exchanges. I also study public law from a comparative perspective, and examine how leaders from across the world have attempted to build domestic legal systems that encourage economic development.

My work is global in perspective. I am interested in how legal rules arise, circulate, and change as they encounter on-the-ground resistance. This often entails tracing conflicts across time and space. To conduct this type of research, I make use of primary sources in Chinese, English, and Spanish. 

My research has appeared or is forthcoming in the American Journal of Comparative Law, Harvard Law Review, Journal of American-East Asian Relations, and an edited volume on China-Africa relations.

I received a JD magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where I was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, and a BA summa cum laude in Chinese from Arizona State University. I am currently completing a PhD in history at Yale University. I began my career in the international development sector, including two years in the Zambia office of IDinsight, an economic research and consulting firm.

My teaching interests include contracts, business associations, property, international business transactions, comparative law, and international law.

A copy of my CV is available here.