I study the behavioral and psychological foundations of democratic institutions and governance, with a focus on how beliefs, motivations, language, emotions, social learning, and policies shape interactions between individuals and institutions. These interactions are central to democracy and to addressing societal challenges that require people to work together, including inequality, climate change, and the sustainability of democracy itself. Ultimately, my goal is to inform the design of institutions that improve public goods provision while aligning with human psychology and upholding democratic values.

My current projects extend this agenda to the impact of AI on democracy. In collaboration with the Penn HCI group, I audit AI systems’ responses to election-related information and study AI fairness in political contexts, with a focus on how human-AI interaction may shape political beliefs and behaviors.

Methodologically, I integrate machine learning and natural language processing to measure concepts of interest from text, statistical models for inference, experiments, and formal and agent-based modeling. My work draws on diverse data sources, including congressional floor speeches, presidential speeches, Supreme Court hearings and opinions, campaign speeches, social media, incentivized and survey experiments, and survey data.

My work has appeared in journals including PNAS, the Journal of Environmental Psychology, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, and Constitutional Political Economy. My research has also received support from the APSA Summer Centennial Center Research Grant and the Institute for Humane Studies.

I teach Computational Text Analysis for the Social Sciences, which introduces machine learning and natural language processing using both R and Python. I also teach substantive courses on behavioral political economy, strategic reasoning, and cooperation in addressing contemporary societal challenges. In addition, I have taught Math Camp for Ph.D. students at Stony Brook University. Course materials are available on my Teaching page.

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Social Norms and Behavioral Dynamics. I received my Ph.D. in Political Science from Stony Brook University. Before beginning my doctoral studies, I studied electrical engineering as an undergraduate and earned a master’s degree in economics. I am also an alum of the interdisciplinary traineeship Detecting and Addressing Bias in Data, Humans, and Institutions, a program focused on bias in AI at Stony Brook University.