Political Scientist

I am an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. I study the political determinants of environmental policy—in the US and abroad—with a particular focus on public will and political behavior. The three major strands of my research focus on explaining the development of attitudes and policy views about climate change and the environment, examining how public environmental concern is activated in the political system, and explaining the drivers and consequences of state-level climate policies in the polarized US political context. Throughout my work, I focus on environmental politics to develop and test theories on polarization, public opinion, persuasion, and mobilization. In turn, I apply these lines of theory to one of the most important contemporary policy challenges. At the McCourt School, I teach courses in environmental policy and statistics. In my teaching I aim to help students apply theories and insights from political science, sociology, and economics to a wide range of public policy topics. I earned my PhD in political science and urban studies and planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, masters degrees in environmental policy and urban planning from the University of Michigan, and a bachelors degree in English and American Studies from the University of Virginia.