I am an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Security and Technology at Carnegie Mellon University. I hold a BA in Journalism and Mass Communication from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (2002), an MA in Political Science from the University of Chile (2007), and an MA and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh (2015). Before coming to the US, I worked at the international desks of the newspapers El Mercurio (Chile, 2002-2008) and ABC (Spain, 2008).

As a comparativist, I  focus on two lines of inquiry. I specialize in elite behavior by analyzing how the personality traits and other individual differences of heads of government impact executive governance. Second, I study the consequences of variation in political institutions across countries, with an emphasis on Latin America. I examine executive-legislative relations, informal institutions, gender and politics, and judicial politics.

My work has been published or is forthcoming in The American Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Politics, Political Psychology, Democratization, Journal of Legislative Studies, Latin American Politics and Society, Journal of Law and Courts, Latin American Perspectives, América Latina Hoy, Revista de Ciencia Política, Bolivian Studies Journal, and Política. I have also published or have forthcoming book chapters in Oxford University Press, Springer, and FLACSO.

As an extension of my academic work, I am an affiliated faculty at CMU’s Center for Informed Democracy & Social-Cybersecurity (IDeaS), part of the Democratic Erosion consortium, Chile’s country expert for Freedom House since 2016, and columnist for latinoamerica21.com.