About Jennifer

I study power, identity, and meaning in politics and organizations. Broadly speaking, my work examines how behavior facilitates access to powerful positions and how individual behavior changes after gaining power.  

I am also interested in innovative research methods, especially quantitative approaches. One area of my research uses conjoint experiment design to determine when voters will choose an uncivil candidate. A second area uses computational text analysis to determine whether members of Congress  use more uncivil language over time. 

I received my Ph.D. from University of Notre Dame. My research has received support from the NSF/ASA Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant, the Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy, and the ND Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts.