302 Hamilton Hall
mjfoster@ad.unc.edu
Website
Curriculum Vitae
I am a political scientist studying the dynamics of organizational change with a particular focus on the downstream consequences of rapid growth in difficult operational environments.
I am currently developing a manuscript that investigates the origin, consequences, and mitigation of upwards-driving transformative pressures in militant and clandestine groups. As my research agenda matures, I anticipate generalizing the insights from the operation of clandestine groups into other domains in which leaders face pressures to accommodate changing or misaligned interests of their grassroots membership.
My research includes additional projects that explore the diversity of organizational structures among issue-motivated organizations and the pathways through which network connections influence the trajectories of groups. I have a strong interest in adapting quantitative and computational methods for nontraditional data in political science, particularly applied Bayesian statistics, network analysis, and text-as-data.