Welcome to my academic portfolio. I am Assistant Teaching Professor of Politics at Drexel University. My regular course offerings are introduction to American politics, political parties, electoral systems, and undergraduate research methodology. I also have taught courses on American political development, social movements, urban politics, state politics, and the U.S. Congress.

My forthcoming book proposes a 'shifting coalitions' theory of electoral-system change, puts the U.S. Progressive Era into comparative perspective, and analyzes ranked-ballot reforms in American cities up to about 1960. It concludes that efforts to 'reform away' two-party politics tend to be unstable and leave anti-democratic compromises in their wake.

Other projects look at change in the U.S. party system, current developments in electoral reform, and how those reforms might affect representation.

Georgetown University granted my Ph.D. in July 2017. Formally, I majored in comparative government and minored in American. That major incorporated coursework on political institutions generally, completed during an earlier M.A. (2009) from Georgetown's Democracy & Governance program. Between those degrees, I ran ElectionGuide.org at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems. I also worked at the Campaign Finance Institute in Summer 2008.

I was a Research Fellow at the Democracy Fund for the 2017-8 academic year, then an adjunct professor in James Madison University's DC program. Before graduate school, I worked for FairVote, Café Bonaparte, and a congressional district office in Connecticut.

Recent research publications