Previously, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of International Relations & Political Science at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva (Switzerland), and the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland (USA). In his research, he combines a substantive interest in political science – studying social processes such as urban violence and crime, conflict and terrorism, or social influence through traditional and new media – with the development and refinement of quantitative methodologies for social science research.