I am an Associate Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley. Prior to joining Berkeley I received a B.A. from Carleton College, a Ph.D from NYU, and taught at Cornell.

Most of my current research uses formal models to explore the causes and political consequences of biased beliefs. This work provides some ways to model motivated reasoning (wanting to believe certain things are true) and selection neglect (not understanding the biases in observed information). Both in this line of work and more generally I study topics like authoritarian politics, communication, information manipulation, and conflict.

Recently I was part of an effort to create a Formal Theory section at APSA, and served as the first president of the section. See the section website for information about how to join, our virtual workshop, teaching materials, and more.

CV