Essays/Research

There is a version of grad school where every course is strategically chosen, every assignment is a deliberate demonstration of expertise, and every group project is a minor act of diplomacy between people who would rather work alone. And then there is the version where you sign up for a class mostly because your friends are in it, find yourself interested in material you had almost no background in, and end up submitting the most collaborative thing you wrote in two years.

There is a particular kind of intellectual discomfort that comes from reading political theory that keeps proving itself right in real time. GPPS 481 — The Political Economy of Authoritarian Regimes — was that kind of course, and spring 2024 was not an ideal moment to be studying how authoritarian governments sustain themselves through information manipulation. The news cycle had opinions about that.

France has legally banned virginity testing. The ban isn't working. A policy memo on why enforcement fails when law and community trust are in conflict — and what the Senegal model suggests instead.

Note: Written in early 2024 for GPGN 490 — an intelligence and cybersecurity course — during my second year of graduate studies in International Affairs. The paper analyzes RAW's covert campaign that helped facilitate Bangladesh's independence: the training of the Mukti Bahini, Operation Jackpot, the PSYWAR division, and the meticulous geopolitical maneuvering that turned a genocide into a justified overt intervention. The section I am most invested in is the one on mythology

Note: Written in March 2024 for a Southeast Asian Economics course at UC San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy — the second policy paper I submitted for the course that quarter, the first being on digital trafficking. Wildlife trafficking generates an estimated $7-10 billion annually and is deeply entangled with poverty, corruption, and the same criminal networks behind other forms of illegal trade. The paper argues that enforcement-only approaches are not only ins

The final paper for Gender and Politics at GPS, submitted in March 2024. The title says everything: over 800 women died per day in 2017 from pregnancy and childbirth complications, most of which were preventable. The paper traces why prevention keeps failing — through cultural practices, healthcare discrimination, education gaps, and the systematic exclusion of men from maternal care conversations — and proposes three interventions, the most underrated of which is subsidizing

Note: Written in February 2024 for a Southeast Asian Economics course at UC San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy. The paper examines what the UN has called a global crisis: people trafficked across Southeast Asia and forced to run online scams — the same scams that flood inboxes daily. The analytical focus is on regulatory gaps and the Cambodia-Malaysia comparison. I've kept the policy register of the original paper intact; this is not a subject that benefits from

What drew me to the women and walkability question was straightforward: safety in public space is something I think about, and something that urban development has historically failed to design around. The research is clear — from the age of eight, public spaces are dominated by boys to eighty percent, and girls report feeling significantly more excluded. That gap doesn't close as women age; it calcifies.

Written in fall 2023 for a Politics of Southeast Asia course during my graduate studies in International Affairs. The paper argues that the dominant US-China binary in Southeast Asian geopolitics obscures a third and historically rooted actor: India. The argument begins in antiquity — with the Indianization of Southeast Asian kingdoms — and ends in the present, where India's Act East Policy and partnership-based approach gives it leverage neither superpower can replicate. Leg

Indian cinema has attained prominence on the modern stage as a conduit of vibrant storytelling, song, and dance. It covers a variety in language, vast themes, and has emerged as a cultural phenomenon -- with recognition at platforms like the Oscars. However, beneath the glamour lies a complex tapestry of social issues; while Indian cinema followed similar trajectories as the West, the effects on perceptions of skin tone, languages, and the consolidation of stereotypes was exa

Made in winter 2023 for VIS 135 — Design Research Methods — during my senior year. The project was a photographic series examining the over-sexualization of the sari by the Western gaze and the act of reclaiming it. All photographs are my own. The images are embedded throughout — the text on them is part of the work. View Project The sari is not a costume. It is not exotic. It is not an invitation. It is, at its most literal, a length of unstitched fabric — somewhere between

A graduate policy review of Mallory O'Meara's Girly Drinks — on how brewing beer, running speakeasies, and ordering a drink have always been about power, and what that means for policy today.