I am an interdisciplinary scholar of international relations, specialising in U.S.–China relations, strategic studies, and political psychology. My research examines how political leaders and their advisers make decisions under pressure, especially in moments of crisis, uncertainty, war, and strategic competition. I hold a PhD in International Relations from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

My work examines how cognitive and social psychological dynamics shape strategic judgment. In war and crisis decision-making, leaders are often expected to weigh competing assessments carefully before making choices that could alter the fate of their country. Yet they frequently narrow the circle of consultation, privilege some voices over others, and rely on confidence as a guide to judgment. My book project, The Confidence Trap, develops this problem into a theory of how leaders and advisers assess the credibility of military threats. It shows how confidence can support decisive leadership, but can also generate dysfunctional patterns of advice-seeking, threat assessment, and strategic judgment. This research agenda has been recognised by the International Studies Association’s (ISA) Carl Beck Award in 2026 and the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society (IUS) Graduate Student Paper Award in 2025.

I am currently a Global Encounters Fellow at the University of Tübingen’s College of Fellows and a Research Fellow with the Military Studies Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. While my broader research remains centered on war, crisis decision-making, and international security, my project at Tübingen examines confidence, trust, and the political psychology of climate diplomacy. By turning to global climate negotiations, the project tests and generalises selected insights from my Confidence Trap Theory, asking how political actors assess expertise, respond to scientific advice, and make commitments under uncertainty. This research is supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education Social Science Research Council Graduate Research Fellowship.

Previously, I was a Hans J. Morgenthau Fellow in Grand Strategy at the Notre Dame International Security Center, University of Notre Dame, and a visiting researcher at National Taiwan University and the University of Washington.