About Me

I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Inter-American Policy and Research (CIPR) at Tulane University. I received my PhD in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2024, following an MA in Political Science from the same institution and an MA in Sociology from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

I am on the 2025-2026 academic job market.

My research in comparative political psychology and behavior examines democratic representation from two complementary perspectives: the psychological foundation of how citizens develop political preferences and how political parties compete for support. This work has been published in several peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Politics, Political Behavior, Party Politics, European Journal of Political Research, Journal of Politics in Latin America, and Latin American Research Review. Current work has received an invitation to revise and resubmit at Perspectives on Politics.

I coordinate the Chapel Hill Expert Survey - Latin America (CHES-LA) with Jonathan Hartlyn and Cecilia Martínez-Gallardo. The initial 2020-2021 wave surveyed 160 experts who evaluated 112 political parties and 13 presidents across 12 Latin American countries. Our current 2024-2025 wave significantly expands coverage to 18 countries and broadens the scope to examine critical issues of populism and democratic commitment. Data from the first wave is publicly available here.

I also serve as Principal Investigator for the Chapel Hill Expert Survey - United States (CHES-US), with Ryan Bakker, Royce Carroll, Alexa Federice, and Christopher Hare. This project extends the CHES methodology to capture party positions on both ideological and non-ideological dimensions in the American context, with additional focus on state-level political dynamics and subnational party positions.

My current research projects explore how citizens process political information in both Latin America and the United States, the psychological underpinnings of clientelism, and party system dimensionality in Latin America.