I am a historian of the administrative state, in its different global iterations. My research examines the evolving relationship between public administration, citizenship, and democratic accountability. I seek to understand how changing ideas and practices of good governance have shaped how the state interacts with individuals, families, and communities, particularly marginalized and disenfranchised peoples. By understanding the roots of modern bureaucracy, I hope to identify paths towards more equitable, transparent, and accountable public administration. Combining my training in the histories of the Middle East, South Asia, Latin America, and the United States, I aim to understand the modern administrative state as a product of cross-regional exchanges.

My dissertation, tentatively titled, Scientific Politics: Positivism, Evolutionism, Scientism, and the Rise of Technocracy in the Middle East and Latin America, is a global history of technocracy, the notion that public policy should be determined by social science, and that scientific experts should have a leading role in politics. I examine how three global ideological movements – positivism, evolutionism, and scientism – shaped the emergence of technocracy in Latin America and the Middle East.

My legal scholarship examines the administrative state’s role as a tool for either building democratization and equality, or entrenching disenfranchisement and exclusion. My research explores three main questions. First, how can disenfranchised communities of color hold administrative agencies accountable. Second, what is the role of administrative agencies in defining political, social, and economic citizenship. Third, in what ways can administrative practices strengthen or weaken democratization around the world.   

In my work, as in my scholarship, I try to bridge research with advocacy. While in law school, I interned at the Environmental Defense Fund, the Open Society Justice Initiative, the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrant Rights Project, the ACLU of Texas, the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund, and the European Court of Human Rights.

A first-generation American, I was born in California to Salvadoran parents, and grew up in San Salvador. After finishing school in El Salvador, I completed a B.A. in Literature at Yale College. I have received an M.A. in Hispanic Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, and a J.D. from Yale Law School. In 2016-2017, I was a Fulbright Fellow at Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey.