About Me

I am the Pauline Yelderman Endowed Chair and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Houston. My research focuses on how democracy solves the problem of social inequality. Because social inequality takes various forms and is shaped by a complex set of political processes, I address the question of democracy and inequality by focusing on the institutional and policy determinants of inequality. Taking a policy-focused approach, I investigate the politics of welfare generosity, the institutional root of public preferences on the role of government in social protection, the political causes of health & health care inequality, and the governance of collaborative health care networks. In addition to my substantive research, I am interested in quantitative research methods, such as panel data analysis and Bayesian measurement models. I offer courses on the politics of inequality and redistribution, social welfare policy, quantitative policy analysis, and maximum likelihood estimation. My previous research has appeared in American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, American Journal of Public Health, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and Policy Studies Journal, among others.