I am an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN. I received my PhD from the University of Nebraska in Spring 2013. My research primarily focuses upon how emotions influence political beliefs and behavior. Specifically, my dissertation examines how the emotionality of media messages acts as information cues for the orienting of citizens’ attention.

I am interested in political communication and psychology, with the former involving the ways in which the media report on political issues and the latter involving how citizens use (or don’t use) information received from the media. I utilize numerous methodological approaches in my research, including experimental designs, machine learning, and automated content analysis of large-scale media texts.

In addition to the study of political behavior and psychology, I also study public policy; namely, the evolution of elite policy framing in the U.S. Congress, as well as how scientific information is (or isn’t) used in environmental policy debates.

Research Interests

• American Politics: Political communication, political psychology
• Public Policy: Policy agenda-setting, policy framing, water policy
• Methodology: Statistical programming, simulations, general quantitative methods