I am a PhD Student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. My research centers on the erosion of democratic institutions.

Three projects constitute my research agenda.

First, my current project, funded by the Malyi Center for Institutional Effectiveness, tracks the history of election denialism in the United States with text-as-data analysis of town hall transcripts and politician speeches. Did denialist rhetoric originate amongst elites or the mass public? How did this rhetoric evolve over time, and what is the future of election denialism in American politics?

Second, I study how executives in presidential democracies circumvent their term limits. My recent paper, published in Democratization, analyzes one solution for deterring presidents from staying in power for life.

Third, under Professors Tom Ginsburg and Kristina Daugirdas, I help manage the Charters of Intergovernmental Organizations Project (CIGO). The project, funded by the National Science Foundation, is an effort to collect the formal charter documents for international organizations. Charters lay out voting thresholds, rules, and the institutional structure that governs international organizations. Our current work argues that these institutional features have important consequences for the lifecycle of IOs, including their founding principles, flexibility in the face of change, and longevity.

Prior to the PhD, I worked two years as a full-time teaching assistant in the Department of Political Science at UChicago. I also worked for one year as a data and project manager for CIGO, managing RAs and cleaning data in R.

Download my CV.