I am the Herbert J. Ellison Professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. I mostly write about the post-Soviet region on topics such as conspiracy theories, disinformation, authoritarianism, informality, and identity. My current project involves understanding the political and societal effects of public awareness of the threat of disinformation.

I co-edited Enemies Within: The Global Politics of Fifth Columns (Oxford University Press, 2022), with Harris Mylonas.

My book Revealing Schemes: The Politics of Conspiracy in Russia and the Post-Soviet Region came out with Oxford University Press in 2021. It investigates why politicians in the region promote conspiratorial claims and what effects that has.

For a summary my thoughts on conspiracy theories, check out my article, Why Democracy Fuels Conspiracy Theories, in Journal of Democracy and my interview on the Democracy Paradox podcast.

My first book, Weapons of the Wealthy: Predatory Regimes and Elite-Led Protests in Central Asia, was published by Cornell University Press in 2010. My articles have appeared in journals including Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, International Studies Quarterly, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Democracy, Political Geography, Political Communication, and Post-Soviet Affairs. Policy commentary has appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The National Interest, The Guardian, Slate, and the Monkey Cage/Washington Post.

I am a faculty member at UW’s Center for an Informed Public and a member of the Program on New Approaches to Research and Security (PONARS) in Eurasia. For the 2022-23 academic year, I was a Jean Monnet Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, part of the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.

I teach the following courses: States, Markets, and Societies; Contemporary Central Asian Politics; Post-Soviet Security; Interdisciplinary Survey of Eurasia; Failed States; Research Design and Methods; and Social Movements and Revolutions.