My research centers broadly around comparative politics and historical political economy. I am especially interested in long-term developments of political institutions and culture, such as the emergence and legacy of early state-building, evolution of cultural norms, and historical persistence. In my PhD, I traced the origins of the modern state in medieval and early modern Europe using castles to measure the historical monopolization of violence, a defining characteristic of modern states. As a postdoc at Stanford, I focused on the origins and evolution of patriarchal gender norms. 

In my current position at NTNU, I am part of the LEGACIES project in which we map the historical presence of states globally from 1750–1900 (see below). 

Research interests: State formation, state capacity, political institutions, cultural evolution, historical persistence, causal inference, GIS, data science

Visit my personal website for more information.