I am an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Social Studies at Harvard University. I obtained my Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University in May 2017. Between 2017 and 2019, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Watson Institute at Brown University.
My research is driven by some simple questions about the distribution of flourishing and suffering in modern societies. I am also interested in the often-fraught relationship between our normative commitments and our empirical work.
Most of my ongoing work is on American mass incarceration. With John Clegg, I am working on a book in which we seek to explain American punishment by studying it in comparative and historical context. The book is based on a multi-year effort to collect comparative and historical data on prisons, policing, penal spending and related series. With Chris Lewis, I am working on a book explaining what is wrong with mass incarceration if the standard story of its origins is false.
Most of my research uses computational and quantitative methods, which I have taught at the graduate level. That said, I retain a keen interest in the comparative historical method, and in qualitative social science more generally.
I am always looking for research assistants. Please do not hesitate to reach out.