I am a Professor of Political Science at the University of Tennessee. This site provides information about my research and teaching, which center around issues of inequality, exclusion, and representation across the Americas. Democracies have frequently failed to confront entrenched hierarchies along the axes of race, class, and gender, and I seek to call attention to these shortcomings and uncover their consequences. In doing so, my work emphasizes how weaknesses in the practical functioning of democracy have significant costs for the lived experiences of ordinary citizens and for the stability and survival of the democratic regime itself.
My research has been honored with multiple awards, and my writing has been published in various outlets in political science and Latin American studies, including the American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Politics, and Latin American Research Review. I have received external funding from organizations including the Russell Sage Foundation, the Pew Foundation, and the Fulbright-Hays program, and I have won several residential fellowship awards including invitations from the Kellogg Institute at Notre Dame and the Wilson Center. I often present my work at universities, think tanks, and government agencies across the United States and Latin America, and my scholarship has been featured in blogs and the popular press.