Welcome to my portfolio. I am Assistant Teaching Professor of Political Science at Drexel University. My research is on political parties and the politics of election reform in the United States. That work has appeared in American Politics Research, Electoral Studies, Representation, and SAGE Research Methods Cases.
At Drexel, I teach American Government, Introduction to Political Science, State & Local Government, Comparative Democratic Institutions, and the occasional methods course. I also taught for Georgetown University and James Madison University's DC program.
My book project explains the rise and fall of proportional representation in 24 American cities, 1893-1962. We can understand electoral reform as an extension of coalition politics. In a country with two nominal parties, the price of a reform coalition is to make the rules "non-partisan." That punts on the problem of disciplining legislatures. Historically, reform coalitions fractured, and opponents linked proportional voting with "black agitation" and communism. A byproduct of reform agitation was the popularization of plurality-at-large elections.
Georgetown University granted my Ph.D. in July 2017. I was a Research Fellow at the Democracy Fund for the 2017-8 academic year. Before graduate school, I worked at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, the Campaign Finance Institute, FairVote, two restaurants, and a congressional district office.
