Current Research

Constitutional Law, Religion, and Politics

​My dissertation comprises my principal interest. It is an examination of the Pulpit Freedom Sunday Movement. I am interested in ​Christian legal organizations that promote the PFS initiative, evangelicalism’s propensity as a social movement to support it, and the clergy’s willingness to become involved. I examines the constitutional, political, theological, and philosophical influences on evangelical clergy who choose to break the law and engage in partisan politics (i.e. violate existing statutory and regulatory law). The dissertation incorporates a mix-methods approach which includes an engagement with important normative questions as well as quantitative analyses (see the separate page on my dissertation topic for further information).

Mixed-Methods Analysis

Expert in statistical and qualitative data analysis using R Studio, STATA, MAXQDA, and DICTION 7.0, with strong Python coding capabilities.​

Native Americans and Voting Rights

I have completed research on Native American voting rights and their civic status from the Founding onward. Moreover, I was also involved in research related to a voting rights case, Thomas Poor Bear et al. v. County of Jackson (2014), in South Dakota.​

I published a peer-reviewed journal article, "Voting Rights Act’s Pre-Clearance Provisions: The Experience of Native Americans in South Dakota"

in The American Indian Culture and Research Journal​.

The Administration of Elections

I am currently working with Professors Andrew E. Busch, Kenneth P. Miller, and Jean R. Schroedel​ on a multi-state examination of the

discretionary power of local election officials and their approach to the administration of elections (see our recent poster session

at 2017 APSA here). This project is funded in part by the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College,

the Lear Family Foundation​, Blais Foundation​, and Claremont Graduate University.

Plato, Publius, John Locke, and Martin Heidegger

I also have considered the problem of the Founding (i.e. the adoption of the Constitution contra the Articles of Confederation),

and the legislator's understanding of "responsibility" by considering James Madison's defense of the Constitution in Federalist

no. 40.

My work on John Locke examines the connection between the Two Treatises of Government and his The Reasonableness of

Christianity As Delivered in the Scriptures. I consider whether Locke means to import a more rationalistic Christianity into the

Two Treatises.

My central focus in the area of political philosophy, however, concerns the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. My interests are in

early Heidegger (Being and Time; The Basic Problems of Phenomenology​), but I have read many of his later works ("What Is

Called Thinking?"; "The Question Concerning Technology"; and Poetry, Language, Thought). I have a broader interest in the

phenomenological tradition as represented by Heidegger. Lastly, I am interested in Heidegger and Nietzsche's understanding

of freedom. I consider this question by way of Heidegger's Nietzsche, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.