I had been working as a democracy and governance consultant for USAID for 12 years when the stop-work order was issued in January 2025. I have not worked since then and hold out little hope of future USAID contracts, though I am pursuing projects with other donors. The democracy, human rights, and governance (DRG) field has been decimated by the dismantling of USAID.

As a consultant, my projects have included: evaluations of several legislative strengthening and decentralization projects in Ukraine; a DRG assessment in Poland; an evaluation of a grants program in nine countries of the Black Sea region; and a half-dozen projects in Kyrgyzstan. Previously, I have worked as a Javits Fellow on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; an international affairs analyst at the Congressional Budget Office; director of the Defense and Security Committee of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Brussels; and professional staff member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. My time at the latter committee included eight years as staff director of the House Democracy Partnership, a congressional peer-to-peer legislative strengthening initiative, where I managed programs in 17 countries, including North Macedonia, Kosovo, Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan.