News
LSE's American Politics and Policy Blog featured my American Political Science Review article, co-authored with Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, on self-interest, NIMBYism, and the opioids crisis (October 18, 2019).
About Me
I am a political scientist studying how institutional spatial scale affects political behavior to undermine democratic representation. I use original data to show that collective outcomes in housing, health policy, and voting behavior are all shaped by the spatial scale of institutions. Previous research has suggested that when institutions are designed to shift power to smaller spatial scales, they may result in normatively positive outcomes. My research indicates that the smaller spatial scale of institutions may change political behavior in ways that prevent the development of needed public goods, such as housing and public health infrastructure. In short, the design of political institutions can subvert representation and collective action around the siting of things society needs, but nobody wants nearby.
Methodologically, I leverage geocodable observational data as well as original survey and experimental approaches. I am an Assistant Professor of Political Science at George Washington University and received my Ph.D. in Government and Social Policy from Harvard University in 2017. My research has been published in the American Political Science Review and Social Forces.
