I am currently a 5th year graduate student in the Social Psychology area at Rutgers University. I graduated in 2003 from The College of New Jersey, where I completed my senior honors thesis in Dr. Andrew Leynes’ ERP Lab. At Rutgers, I work in Dr. Lee Jussim’s Social Perception Lab. I am currently ABD, and expect to complete my Ph.D. in May of 2008.

I am primarily interested in how political ideology and belief shapes our perceptions. With Lee Jussim and Tom Cain, I have examined the dueling roles of party membership and issue position in forming impressions of political actors. With Lee Jussim and Florette Cohen, I have looked at how our political ideologies can lead to the biased construal of objective information. Lee and I have also examined how ideology and personal values shape our support for democratic principles. In the mix of all this ongoing research, I have begun to dissertate on the topic of symmetrical ideological bias in social cognition.

Outside of the general area of political psychology, I am also interested in terror management theory, religion, and attitudes toward homosexuality.