I am a political psychologist specializing in extremism, public opinion, racial and ethnic politics, and quantitative methods. More specifically, my work explores what extremism is and what encourages and discourages extremism, in the public and at the elite level.
Prior to coming to BYU, I was an assistant professor at Clemson University. Before that, I received a M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Northwestern University.
Research Interests
I study extremism in democracies. More specifically, my work explores what extremism is and what encourages and discourages extremism, in the public and at the elite level. I consider both a general approach to extremism and several specific kinds – including racial extremism, partisan extremism, and populism. My research on extremism relies on various methods, using lab experiments, quasi-experiments, survey experiments, text-as-data, surveys, artificial intelligence, and big data from Google and Twitter.
Teaching Interests
I teach classes on American politics, research methods, extremism, the media and politics, and public opinion. In these classes, I combine lecture, active learning activities, and a variety of teaching strategies to help students learn material in grounded and applied ways. My goal is for my students to develop the tools to continue learning even after my courses have finished.
