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.

My most recent research takes a broader look at intervention effects. Specifically, I study the conditions under which interventions—such as those designed to reduce prejudice or change electoral behavior—have different effects on private versus public outcomes. I also examine how these asymmetric effects shape social change by accelerating, deepening, or reducing preference falsification — the gap between people’s private attitudes and behaviors and their public expression.

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.