Originally from Erie, Pennsylvania, I attended Allegheny College in nearby Meadville. Upon graduating in 2005, I began graduate studies at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee where I studied modern political philosophy before falling under the spell of the quantitative methods used to analyze public opinion in America. After two years at Vanderbilt, I moved down I-40 to Durham, North Carolina. In 2012, I graduated from Duke University with my Ph.D. in Political Science and from 2012-2013 I was a visiting Assistant Professor at Oberlin College. The following year I began at Indiana University in Bloomington, where I have been for over a decade; being promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure in 2020. I love helping students learn and believe my training in philosophy informs all of my teaching and scholarship. 

My research focuses on American politics, race and racism in America, media framing, climate change, and statistical methods. These interests overlap in my recent projects concerned with the measurement and dimensionality of Whites' racial attitudes, as well as a new textbook project on applying metacognition in the classroom; this textbook is currently "in beta" in my own classroom in the fall of 2024:

For more examples of my work and publications, please see my CV here.