Welcome

I am an Assistant Professor at Duke Kunshan University, where I teach political science and public policy, mentor undergraduate Signature Work projects, and strive to improve the DKU curriculum. I am also a faculty affiliate at DKU's Center for the Study of Contemporary China in the Citizens and Representation Cluster. I received my Ph.D. in Political Science from Duke University in 2020. 

My research examines responsiveness and representation across a wide variety of legislatures, including North Carolina's county commissions, American state legislatures, the U.S. Congress, the Vietnamese National Assembly, China's local People's Congresses, Russian regional assemblies, and others. How do ward-based electoral arrangements, out-of-district campaign donations, and the provision of policy-relevant constituency preferences affect responsiveness and representation? How can we better measure representation and misrepresentation in legislative bodies? How do electoral institutions foster rational ignorance and what are the consequences when electoral commissions aren't impartial?

Other lines of inquiry concern how political institutions shape the law, whether that be through the legislators who make it or the judges who interpret it. This includes work explaining how the filibuster threat shaped the composition of the federal bench, measuring political polarization in opinion endorsement networks at the U.S. Supreme Court and in congressional cosponsorship behavior, and estimating judicial preferences from legal citation networks. 

Throughout my research, I employ a broad array of methodological approaches, including text-as-data, networks, econometrics, simulation studies, field and survey experiments, and archival work. You can find my research in the pages of the American Political Science Review and The Journal of Politics and forthcoming in Political Behavior and Electoral Studies.

To learn more about my work —  and me —  please check out the rest of the site using the menu at the top of the page.