I earned my Ph.D. in Political Science from Claremont Graduate University, in the Department of Politics and Government, with a specialization in American Politics and Political Philosophy. My training in American Politics was supervised by Jean Reith Schroedel, and the late Michael Uhlmann, while my study of Political Philosophy was guided by Mark Blitz and James Nichols.

I am a lecturer in the Department of Political Science at California State University, Los Angeles (Fall of 2016). I also teach political science in the Public Service, Culture, and Society Community at Chaffey Community College (Fall  2019). Most recently, I began teaching in the Rising Scholars Program at the California Institution for Men in Chino, California (Fall 2024). I work with incarcerated students to provide access to higher education. They are some of the greatest students I have ever taught.

My research is primarily focused on the intersection of constitutional law, religion, and politics. I do additional work on voting rights in Indian Country. More specifically, my research examines church-state relations through the lens of the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses, with a particular focus on cause lawyering and the political engagement of evangelicals — broadly encompassing the Christian Right.

​Within political philosophy, my research interests include four key thinkers: Plato, Publius, John Locke, and Martin Heidegger. Each of these topics has connections to broader themes in, constitutional law, American political development, religion and politics, American political thought, voting rights, ​and the history of political philosophy.

My dissertation examines the theological, constitutional, 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). It incorporates a mix-methods approach which includes engagement with important normative and quantitative analyses.