Welcome! I am a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Government at Cornell University, where I work with Peter Enns on projects examining how citizens’ ethical values shape democratic attitudes and political behavior. My dissertation-based book project, How the Ethical Positions of Voters and Politicians Matter in a Democracy, develops the concept of “ethical distance”–the gap between citizens’ own ethical views and those they perceive to prevail in society–to explain declining democratic support and changing political behavior. Drawing on original datasets, experiments, and observational analyses, I provide new evidence on the moral underpinnings of political preferences, democratic attitudes, civic engagement, and perceptions of democratic representation.
Broader Research Agenda
Beyond my book project, my broader research agenda advances three interrelated themes: (1) how citizens’ moral values and perceptions of ethical distance shape their support for democracy and evaluation of politicians; (2) how representation and electoral behavior are influenced by ideological heterogeneity, policy partisanship, and local context; and (3) how emerging technologies, social trust and online communication reshape democratic attitudes and political behavior. Across these projects I employ original datasets, experiments, textual analysis and observational analyses to develop a unified understanding of the moral and institutional forces that sustain or erode democracy. My work has appeared in the Journal of European Social Policy and the Canadian Journal of Political Science, with additional papers under review at leading journals. My research is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), SSHRC Explore Grant, and funding from the Politics, Elections, and Representation Lab.
Previous Postdoc and Applied Statistics Book
Previously, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto, working with Christopher Cochrane on projects extending my dissertation research on ethical distance and democratic attitudes. During this fellowship, together with him, I launched our book project, Applied Statistics: Learning by Heart, Mind, and Soul. Drawing on more than a decade of teaching applied statistics across multiple continents, the book demystifies quantitative methods for three distinct groups of students–those held back by fear, those building on existing confidence, and those seeking relevance–creating an inclusive and supportive path to statistical mastery.
Teaching and Education
I have extensive experience teaching quantitative research methods and political science courses to diverse undergraduate, master’s, and PhD audiences at the University of Toronto, the ICPSR Summer Program at the University of Michigan, and the Hertie School in Berlin. My student-centered, inclusive approach has consistently earned top-tier evaluations, with full details and syllabi available on my teaching page.
I earned my PhD in Political Science from the University of Toronto in 2024. Before that, I received my Master of Public Policy from the Hertie School in Berlin (2016), and a Bachelor and Master of Social Sciences in Political Science from the University of Dhaka (2011 and 2012). I also completed an internship at the United Nations Secretariat in New York in 2015.