About Me

Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame and a Computational Social Science Faculty Fellow with the Lucy Family Institute for Data and Society. My research focuses on American politics, with a particular interest in how electoral institutions influence congressional representation, communication, and policymaking. In my current work, I employ an original collection of text data from congressional campaign websites to investigate candidates’ strategic campaign position taking. Additionally, I am producing a co-authored book manuscript that investigates the growing success of political amateurs at winning seats in Congress. My work has been published in outlets such as The Journal of Politics, The American Journal of Political Science, and Legislative Studies Quarterly. My Google Scholar profile can be found here.

I received my Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2022, and B.A. in Political Science and International Affairs from the University of Georgia in 2016. My dissertation, Some Politics Are Still Local: Strategic Position Taking in Congress & Elections, won the American Political Science Association’s E.E. Schattschneider Award for best dissertation in American government.