Welcome!

Hello!

I am a fifth-year PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science. My research focuses on identity politics, political psychology and behavior, and political sociology. Substantively, I focus my research on how people’s lived experiences, both inter- and intragroup, shape their political behaviors, beliefs, and attachments. Methodologically, I employ both quantitative and qualitative methods to improve how researchers study the effects of identity on the individual-level and elite-level. This includes research using psychometrics, Bayesian model averaging, machine learning, and qualitative data collection and analysis methods.

My dissertation specifically investigates LGBTQ people’s sense of linked fate as a way to broaden our understanding of this concept and expand its theoretical framework. I use a combination of survey, phenomenological, and psychometric techniques to explore (1) how LGBTQ people experience a sense of linked fate, (2) the experiential and affective mechanisms driving LGBTQ people’s sense of linked fate, and (3) develop a novel, multidimensional measure to assess LGBTQ people’s sense of linked fate.

In addition to my dissertation, my other current projects investigate how constituent-level identity (including White identity) shapes state and local elites’ legislative behavior, and ‘manosphere’ socialization.