As a sociologist, I investigate how conflicts and political fault lines shape the relational foundations of alliances. Conceptually, I am intrigued by the question of how different senses of “we” are formed and fractured in response to the multiple crises of today's world. Asking this question enables me to revisit some fundamental assumptions about solidarity and power relationships in diasporic, immigrant, ethnic, democratic, and other forms of political organizations. In this way, my research agenda broadly encompasses political culture, repression, migration, globalization, and social movements.
 

My current project examines how migrants and exiles build political alliances across borders while also confronting conflicts and a series of paradoxes in their struggles against authoritarianism. To this end, I am writing a book manuscript, Multipolar Politics: Challenges of Global Alliance-Building Against Authoritarianism, based on five years of comparative ethnography with Hong Konger diaspora activists and their allies in the United States, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. My work has been recognized with awards including the ASA Human Rights Section Graduate Student Paper Award (Honorable Mention), the Alpha Kappa Delta Graduate Student Paper Award (First Place), and the Distinguished Graduate Student Paper Award from the Pacific Sociological Association. It has been supported by a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship from Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, as well as the ASA Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (declined due to graduation). I received my PhD in Sociology from the University of Southern California in 2025.