I am a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with concentrations in American politics and research methodology. For the 2026–27 academic year, I am also an Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center, working under the supervision of Danielle Allen.
My dissertation, Conceding Political Power: Explaining the Rise and Spread of Citizen Empowerment Policies, asks why state legislatures adopt reforms — such as campaign finance regulations, independent redistricting commissions, and stringent ethics rules — that expand citizen power and constrain lawmaker authority. This is a puzzle that existing theories of legislative behavior struggle to explain. Focusing on New York, the non-ballot-initiative state that adopted more such reforms than any other in the twenty-first century, I combine interviews, archival records, and quantitative analysis to identify the multi-stage causal sequence through which reform becomes law.
Beyond the dissertation, I have eight publications across American politics and political psychology. These include Money, Partisanship, and Power in Local Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2025), co-authored with Robert Boatright, Lane Cuthbert, Raymond La Raja, and Meredith Rolfe, which uses donor network analysis to show how informal party networks shape electoral outcomes in formally nonpartisan city elections. My publications have appeared in PS: Political Science & Politics, The Forum, and Social Science Quarterly.
At UMass, I serve as Lead Graduate Fellow for the UMass Poll, where I have designed and fielded more than twenty-five national and state surveys, rebuilt the poll’s research infrastructure, and authored an R package to streamline our analysis pipeline. I also co-founded and co-direct the UMass Poll Undergraduate Fellows Program with Jesse Rhodes — a year-long research lab that trains undergraduates in survey design and statistical analysis, culminating in original projects presented at the New England Political Science Association.
Alongside research, I am deeply passionate about teaching. I have served as teaching assistant for courses including Introduction to American Politics, Political Psychology, and Race and Politics, and I am currently the instructor of record for an upper-level seminar on Democracy and Election Reform.
Outside of academia, I served as Executive Director of Equal Citizens, a national democracy-reform organization founded by Lawrence Lessig, and co-authored Daring Democracy: Igniting Power, Meaning, and Connection for the America We Want (Beacon Press, 2017) with Frances Moore Lappé. I received my B.A. from Vassar College.
