I am a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Western Michigan University, where I study American political behavior, public opinion, and political participation, with a particular focus on young adults. I expect to complete my degree in June 2027.

My dissertation, Beyond the Ballot: Unraveling the Complexities of Young Adults’ Political Participation in Contemporary U.S. Politics, introduces the “Evolving Funnel of Young Adult Political Participation,” a framework for understanding how and why young Americans engage in politics, both through conventional channels like voting and through unconventional forms of activism. Drawing on more than two decades of data from the American National Election Studies (2000–2024) and the Cooperative Election Study (2006–2024), the project traces how participation among 18-to-29-year-olds has diverged from that of older Americans over time.

Broadly, my research asks how the political environment shapes who participates in American democracy and why. In a related project, I examine whether the age of congressional candidates affects youth turnout, drawing on an original dataset of more than 22,000 House and Senate candidates from 2000 to 2024 merged with national survey data. With Michael Girman, I am co-authoring “Animus from Animosity: Negative Partisanship and its Effects on Voter Turnout,” which examines how hostility toward the opposing party shapes the decision to vote, and this will be presented at the 2027 annual Midwest Political Science conference. With Peter W. Wielhouwer, I am co-authoring work "A New Civic Repertoire: Young Americans and Unconventional Political Participation", which was presented at the 2026 American Political Science Association annual meeting conference.

Alongside my work on American politics, I bring a comparative perspective to the question of how institutional design and elite behavior shape political participation and policy outcomes. In “Immigration in North America: A Comparative Study of American and Canadian Policy Choices,” I show how differences in institutional design led the United States and Canada to respond to similar postwar pressures with divergent immigration policies. In “Guardians or Saboteurs? Unpacking Electoral Fraud and Elite Power in Nigeria’s Democracy,” co-authored with Oyindamola Olawepo, I examine how elites use electoral fraud to undermine democratic participation.

I have served as Instructor of Record for Introduction to American National Government at Western Michigan University. Before graduate school, I taught English as a Learned Language as adjunct faculty at Black Hawk College in Moline, Illinois (2019–2021). I earned my M.A. in Public Policy and Public Administration from Western Illinois University and my B.A. from Augustana College.