Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Houston and a faculty affiliate at the Center for Effective Lawmaking. I study representation, communication, policymaking, and the influence of money in American legislatures (both state and federal). My research can be found in journals such as The Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and The Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy. Before joining UH, I received a joint PhD in Politics and Social Policy from Princeton University.
My book Paying for the Party: How Fundraising Demands Lead to Less Productive and Representative Legislatures (under contract with the Chicago Studies in American Politics series at the University of Chicago Press) explores the causes and consequences of growing party-driven fundraising demands in American legislatures. These party fundraising systems, which pressure lawmakers to raise and contribute money on behalf of their parties, have taken hold in many state legislatures as well as Congress. Leveraging original data from across the states, I provide evidence that party fundraising hollows out the policymaking capacity of legislatures and contributes to the underrepresentation of disadvantaged groups at the top of the party hierarchy. The dissertation on which the book is based received awards from the Legislative Studies and State Politics & Policy sections of the American Political Science Association.
Other ongoing research projects cover such topics as rhetorical representation on social media by members of Congress, partisanship in state legislatures, mechanisms of influence by interest groups, and the strategic use of conspiracy theories by political elites. More details can be found on the Research page of my website, or on my CV.