I am a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Government of the University of Texas at Austin. I study private governance in the context of national security regulations, in particular business compliance with economic sanctions. For decades, the US government has enforced economic sanctions extraterritorially, often without the consent of firms. Yet in recent years, the government introduced private governance arrangements. I ask the following questions: (1) Why does the US government now rely on private governance to ensure US-tied businesses are complying with economic sanctions? (2) Is private governance over sanctions compliance efforts effective in achieving the US government’s goals? If so, how?

In my dissertation, I show that private governance emerged as a self-enforcing regulatory outcome with leniency offered to firms based on prior compliance efforts, and the new regulatory guidance promoted prudence among risky cross-border mergers and acquisitons initiated by acquirers from sanction-prone sectors. I employ a diverse range of methods, including large-N observational data analysis, corporate audit experiments, elite interviews, and formal models, across different projects that collectively address these questions.

I am a graduate fellow at the Innovations for Peace and Development Lab, heading the research team on tax incentive transparency in the US. I am also a graduate fellow at the Clements Center for National Security.

Prior to my academic career, I worked at China Policy, a macro-policy consultancy based in Beijing, as the lead macroeconomic analyst. I have also had professional experiences at the European Union Delegation to China, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, and the World Resource Institute. I obtained an M.A. in International Trade and Investment Policy from the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University and held a B.A. in English Language and Literature from the University of International Relations, Beijing.