I study how democracies negotiate issues of political inclusion in the context of immigration and increasing social diversity.  My dissertation shows that immigrants typically reach collective decisions, with family members, over whether to apply for citizenship.  The research draws on interviews conducted in Germany and Austria, and makes innovative use of household-level information in census data.  The findings reveal the limits of an individualist conception of citizenship.
 
Other ongoing research projects concern the political gains to immigrants who acquire citizenship in Germany and the USA, and discrimination against immigrant-origin political candidates in Germany.

I am spending the 2011-12 academic year as a Max Weber postdoctoral fellow at the European University Institute.  In December 2011 I received a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley.