I am a job market candidate in the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Ph.D. program at the University of California, Berkeley. I held the Berkeley Empirical Legal Studies Fellowship from 2010-11 and was a Law and Economics Fellow from 2009-10. I received a J.D. from Berkeley Law, an M.P.P. from the Goldman School of Public Policy, and a B.A. in Philosophy from Columbia University.

My research is motivated by several important questions about the institutional regulation of elections and the political process. My current paper Citizens United, States Divided (with Abby Wood) systematically examines the effect of the Citizens United decision on spending at the state level. Because state laws varied with respect to independent expenditures at the time of the decision, we are able to compare changes in political spending in states affected by Citizens United against a counterfactual baseline (unavailable at the federal level) drawn from the spending behavior in states whose laws did not change.

In other work, I examine the relationship between legislator preferences and closely-contested election races, the geography of voter discrimination (with Chris Elmendorf), whether the partisan Attorney General manipulates ballot initiative language toward a particular outcome (also with Chris Elmendorf), and the significance of statutory design with respect to the private enforcement of civil rights (with Sean Farhang).

In addition to my research I have a good deal of teaching experience. I have been a graduate student instructor at U.C. Berkeley in both the Political Science and Legal Studies departments and am a three-time recipient of the Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, an accomplishment I believe illustrates my commitment to quality teaching.

My dissertation committee comprises Professors Robert Cooter (chair), Kevin Quinn, and Henry Brady (Public Policy and Political Science).