I am an Assistant Professor of Public Policy with the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. My research explores how popular participation shapes the local policy-making process, including projects that focus on local electoral responsiveness and the design of participatory governance institutions in Brazil. These projects engage with broader debates about democratic representation and the consequences of decentralization reforms in the developing world. For my work, I received the 2018 Susan Clarke Young Scholars' Award from APSA's Urban and Local Politics Section. Before joining the Batten School, I was a Democracy Fellow with the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School, a Visiting Fellow with the Kellogg Institute at Notre Dame, and a Quin Morton Teaching Fellow with the Princeton Writing Program. I received my PhD in 2017 from Princeton University's Joint Degree Program in Social Policy.