Advisor(s): David Epstein, Robert Lieberman and Robert Erikson

Teaching and Research interests: American politics, U.S. Congress, elections, judicial politics, political methodology, legislative institutions, electoral politics

Dissertation: “Political Lines & Geographical Space: The Use of Redistricting and the Allocation of Industrial Resources to achieve Electoral and Legislative Success”

This dissertation is a three paper project, which examines how redistricting and the efficient allocation of industrial resources across congressional districts can be, and is, employed to increase electoral and legislative success.  The first paper explores the degree to which the dispersion of a commercial industry across the 435 U.S. congressional districts, and the concentration of that industry within each district, affects the likelihood of legislative success for that industry.  Paper two considers the conditions under which state legislators may take advantage of non-voting prison populations (which are included in the census data used for re-apportionment and redistricting) to redraw congressional districts for the purpose of creating a partisan electoral advantage.  The third paper develops an alternative measure of the net impact of redistricting on the competitiveness of national elections.