About

I am Provost Associate Professor in the Department of Government at American University’s School of Public Affairs, where I also serve as Graduate Program Director. My research spans comparative politics, the political economy of development, and political behavior.

My research examines how different sources of state revenue — taxation, natural resources, and foreign aid — shape governance and political behavior. I also study the causes of intergroup conflict and prejudice, and interventions designed to mitigate them, including intergroup contact.

My most recent research examines the effects of such interventions more broadly. Specifically, I study the conditions under which interventions aimed at social change cause private attitudes and behaviors to differ from their public expression. I also study how these differences can cause, deepen, or reduce preference falsification, and the implications for understanding and measuring social change. I examine these dynamics in electoral persuasion, intergroup contact, and information interventions.

Methodologically, I use experiments and other tools for causal inference, often collecting original survey and behavioral data. I have conducted field research in Indonesia, Colombia, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lebanon, and the United States. 

I am a Co-Director of the Democratic Erosion Consortium (DEC), a global network of researchers, students, policymakers, and practitioners working to understand and counter democratic erosion through evidence-based approaches. I am also a member of the Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP) network and a co-convener of the Northeast Workshop in Empirical Political Science (NEWEPS).

Previously, I was an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh; a fellow at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University; and a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC. I received my Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University.