I am an Assistant Professor of Sociology at UCLA. My research examines how social identities and ideologies shape and are reshaped by violence, particularly in contexts of war and genocide. I focus on how people classify themselves and others, how those classifications shift under extreme pressure, and how they drive decisions to participate in, resist, or abstain from violence. Drawing on qualitative, historical, and experimental methods, my work builds falsifiable theories that span culture, politics, morality, identity, and conflict.
 

My book, Sacred Betrayal: How the French Catholic Church Broke Its Pledge to Protect Jews during the Holocaust, is forthcoming from Harvard University Press. I am also co-author, with Shai Dromi and Steve Hitlin, of the second Handbook of the Sociology of Morality (Springer). My research has appeared in American Sociological Review, Sociological Theory, European Journal of Sociology, Social Science History, and other journals, as well as in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.
 

I serve on the Steering Committee of the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation and am affiliated with the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate and the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute. Before joining UCLA, I worked with USAID, the United Nations CTED, the Montreal Institute for Genocide Studies, and Facing History & Ourselves.