I participated in the Politics of Race, Immigration & Ethnicity Consortium Conference (PRIEC), which took place at the University of California, Santa Barbara. I presented my dissertation project, Not All Contact Is Equal: Interaction with Natives and Immigrant Political Integration in Hostile Contexts. I appreciate all the feedback from the audience and especially thank Cynthia S. Kaplan, who served as the moderator and chair for our panel.

More information about the conference can be found here.

During the 2025-2026 academic year, I served as a graduate mentor in the Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program (URAP) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where I mentored Charlotte Rothrock, an undergraduate research apprentice who assisted with qualitative interview materials from my dissertation fieldwork in Belgium and Germany. This mentorship focused on introducing an undergraduate student to qualitative research and the broader research process.

More information about the program can be found here.

At the 2026 MPSA, I presented two papers: (1) my dissertation project, Not All Contact Is Equal: Interaction with Natives and Immigrant Political Integration in Hostile Contexts, and (2) a co-authored paper with Dr. Jonghoon Lee, Alleged Electoral Fraud in Established Democracies: When Do Losers Defy Electoral Outcomes?. I really appreciate the constructive feedback from our discussants: Katie Krumbholz (YouGov) for my dissertation paper; Benjamin Shaver (Northwestern University) and Kisoo Kim (University of Virginia) for the co-authored paper. I also served as a discussant for Emotions Under Suppression: Entrenched Exclusion and Angry Mobilization in Malaysia by Hilary Izatt (Binghamton University).

More information about the panels can be found here.

I completed a short research visit to the SOEP Research Center at DIW to work on the empirical chapter of my dissertation using the SOEP panel data. This was my second visit to the RDC this year, following an initial stay in April. I am grateful to Antonia and Philipp for organizing and hosting both visits and for their support throughout my work with the data.

More information about the SOEP data can be found here.

I was invited to participate in the two-day workshop Political Identities in Europe, hosted by the Amsterdam Centre for European Studies (ACES). I presented the research design phase of my project, When Contact Matters: The Quality of Interpersonal Interaction and Immigrant Political Integration. I am grateful to ACES for supporting my international travel to Amsterdam and providing accommodation throughout the workshop.

More information about the workshop can be found here.

At the 2025 APSA annual meeting, I presented a part of my dissertation project “When Contact Matters: The Quality of Interpersonal Interaction and Immigrant Political Integration”. I really appreciate the constructive feedback from our discussant Boyoon Lee. I also served as a discussant for two papers: “Crowding in representation? The impact of immigrant political success on minority candidate emergence” by Dario Sidhu and “Closing the Door: Why Immigrants Become Anti-Immigrant” by Priyanka Sethy, Marco Avina, and Mashail Malik.

More information about the panel can be found here.

I participated in two APSA Dissertation Workshops: (1) New Topics in European Politics (June 12, 16) and (2) Citizenship & Migration (August 19, 25, 26). In these workshops, I presented my dissertation experiment on the effect of interpersonal contact on political integration. I am grateful for the valuable feedback from participants and especially thank the workshop facilitators, Miguel and Mareike (European Politics) and Claire and Irene (Citizenship & Migration), for their thoughtful comments and support.

More information about the workshops can be found here.

In May 2025, I was a visiting fellow at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES) in Mannheim, Germany. During my stay, I presented my experimental dissertation project and received valuable feedback.

More information about the fellowship can be found here.

I conducted fieldwork in Belgium and Germany as part of my dissertation research, focusing on the lived experiences of first-generation immigrants in both countries. During this period, I interviewed immigrants to better understand their everyday lives and integration experiences. During the fieldwork, I was a visiting researcher at the Research Centre for Migration, Diversity and Justice (CMDJ) in Belgium and at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES) in Germany until the end of May.

I am deeply grateful to both host institutions for supporting my stay and providing an intellectual home during my fieldwork. I also sincerely appreciate the generous Dissertation Travel Grant from the Graduate College, which made this research possible.

At the 2025 Annual MPSA Conference, I presented two papers: (1) my dissertation project, Included but Not Integrated? The Role of Positive Interactions with Natives in Political Integration of Immigrants, and (2) a co-authored paper with Dr. Antoine Bilodeau, Cross-Ethnic Engagement and Political Integration: The Role of Political Engagement with Non-Co-Ethnics in Immigrant Political Behavior in Quebec. I really appreciate the constructive feedback from the discussants, Dr. Seyoung Jung, Dr. Donghyun Danny Choi, and Dr. Felix Krawatzek.

More information about the conference and its agenda can be found here.

I completed a three-month visiting fellowship at the Immigration Research Initiative (IRI) in Montreal, where I engaged with scholars working on immigration at IRI and in the Department of Political Science at Concordia University. I am grateful to my fellowship advisor, Professor Antoine Bilodeau, for his feedback, to Professor Mireille Paquet for organizing the Immigration Reading Group, and to Colin Scott for his guidance and support.

Read the full interview about my fellowship experience here. More information about the IRI visiting doctoral fellowship can be found here.

I presented my dissertation project at the McGill Political Behavior Workshop and received feedback from faculty and graduate students in the Department of Political Science at McGill University. I thank Professor Colin Scott (Concordia University) for arranging the presentation and Professor Dietlind Stolle (McGill University) for organizing the workshop.

I presented my project “Included but Not Integrated? The Role of Interpersonal Contact with Natives in Political Integration of Immigrants” at Immigration Research Initiative (IRI) Seminar at Concordia University. This was part of my fellowship project. More information about the seminar can be found here.

At the 2024 APSA annual meeting, I presented my co-authored paper with Dr. Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell from the University of North Texas, USA, titled “Reactivity of Voters With an Immigration Background to Discourses of Immigration Policies” under the session “The Political Preferences of Immigrants and Foreigners.” We appreciated the constructive feedback from our discussant, Antonio Valentim.

More information about the panel can be found here.

At the International European Social Survey (ESS) conference, I presented my co-authored paper with Dr. Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell from the University of North Texas, USA, titled “Reactivity of Voters With an Immigration Background to Discourses of Immigration Policies” under the session “Studying Immigrants Using the ESS: Methodological Challenges, Empirical Consequences.”

More information about the conference and its agenda can be found here.

I participated the Politics of Race, Immigration & Ethnicity Consortium Conference (PRIEC) that took place at University of North Texas. I presented my work “Well Integrated Immigrants Without a Sense of Belonging? Revisiting Integration Paradox or Successful Integration in Europe”.

More information about the conference can be found here.

I participated in The Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences-Computational Social Science (BIGSSS-CSS Summer) School on Democratic Debate. I was also part of the project team titled ‘Ethnic and Sexual Minority Representation in Parliamentary Speeches: A Comparative Analysis of the United States and Germany from 1945 to the Present’. The Summer School was funded by a grant from the VolkswagenStiftung and my travel to Bremen was funded by German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Scholarship.

More information about the summer school can be found here.

At the 2023 European Union Studies Association (EUSA) Conference, I presented my co-authored paper with Ethan Vander Wilden from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, titled “Sharing Discourse: Transnational Party Communication on Twitter in Europe,” as part of the session “6F Party Positioning and Communication in the New Europe.” We greatly appreciated the insightful feedback from our discussants, William Daniel and Bjorn Hoyland.

More information about the conference can be found here.

At the 2023 Annual MPSA Conference, I presented a co-authored paper with Ethan vanderWilden, Sharing discourse: Transnational party communication on Twitter in Europe.

More information about the conference and its agenda can be found here.

As part of the exchange program between the Department of Political Science at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Washington University in St. Louis, this year’s UIUC team (Ikrom Tuhtasunov, Lucie Lu, and I) led by Professor Matt Winters traveled to St. Louis to present our work at the department. We were truly grateful for the warm welcome and hospitality extended to us by the faculty and graduate students at WashU. I especially want to thank Matt for driving us there and back, helping us prepare for the presentation, and also taking the time to show us around St. Louis.

In 2022, I was awarded the Rita and Leonard Ogren Prizes for Academic Achievement from the Department of Political Science at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The Rita and Leonard Ogren Prizes recognize the best academic performance by PhD student(s).

More information about the award recipients can be found here.

At the 2022 MPSA Annual Meeting, I presented my paper “Well-Integrated Immigrants Without a Sense of Belonging?” I am grateful to Avital Livny and Cara Wong for their guidance and support on this project.

More information about the working group and its agenda can be found here.