My research interests lie at the intersection of authoritarian leadership, political behavior, and subnational level politics in Russia and the wider post-Soviet region. My recent projects explore bureaucratic politics under authoritarianism and allow us to better understand the inner working of the government machinery that ensures political stability.

In my dissertation, I combine laboratory experiments, which aim to trace the mechanism connecting institutions of elite selection and elite characteristics, and observational data analysis. I build the general theory of political ambition under different institutional conditions and test it in the lab. I also explore the effects of subnational selection and autonomy on policy decisions at the municipal and regional levels in Russia.