Welcome! I am Ph.D. candidate in American Politics in the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. My research interests relate to the presidency, executive branch personnel and elections. I expect to finish my Ph.D. in Political Science from Vanderbilt University this spring. I received my B.A. from the University of Arkansas in 2010 and M.A. from the University of Arkansas in 2012.
In an era in which presidents increasingly exert control over the administrative state and a political environment that makes the task of generating policy more focused on rulemaking, the politicization of executive branch personnel has profound consequences for the execution of modern governance. My research injects politics in to the US civil service by measuring the political activities that federal employees engage in and the consequences of politics on the executive branch. Understanding the pervasiveness of this politicization and its consequences is essential to assessing government administration and policy outputs.