I am an Assistant Professor in the Government Department at Harvard. I received my PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago in 2022.
My research uses multiple methods to explore the relationship between place and political behavior. I’m particularly interested in how political-economic transformations have produced place-based inequalities, and how residents’ experiences of their communities today inform their behavior in both local and national politics.
My first book, How the Heartland Went Red: Why Local Forces Matter in an Age of Nationalized Politics (order from Princeton University Press), takes up one piece of this, showing how place intersects with race, class, and religion in shaping the rightward turn across the industrial Heartland. It draws on a comparative study of three White, postindustrial cities during the 2020 presidential election to argue that we can best understand the reddening of the American Heartland by examining how local organizational contexts have sped up or slowed down White voters’ turn toward the right.
I am currently conducting fieldwork in California and Massachusetts for a new book project on place and politics in coastal suburbs.
In other research, I have examined how New Deal social polices reshaped political participation across different local contexts; how place reputation shaped gentrification processes in a Chicago neighborhood; and how redistricting into powerful wards in Chicago affects crime and city service provision.
My research has appeared or is forthcoming in the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, American Journal of Sociology, Studies in American Political Development, Social Forces, and Social Problems, and has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Social Science Research Council.
I am also part of a research team studying people who have recently moved! If you receive an email from me or one of my collaborators, please consider participating. We want to hear your perspective, and we really appreciate your time!