I’m a member of the faculty at the University of Washington, Seattle, where I serve as professor of political science, adjunct professor of statistics, and associate director of the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences. Substantive Interests My political economy and comparative politics research explores the ways political institutions and interests jointly determine the public policies that shape our lives, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, health policy, and trade policy. I am particularly interested in the influence of career incentives and partisanship on elite behavior and policy making. Methodological
interests I specialize in the visual display of scientific information, particularly the illustration of substantive findings from statistical models. I’m also interested in statistical inference using data whose logical bounds enable or improve estimation, as in the study of political rank; compositional data like careers, budgets, and trade portfolios; and ecological inference. Other activities I serve as an expert witness on the use of statistical methods to resolve contested elections. I also consult on matters relating to statistical methodology and data visualization. COVID-19 State Policy Project During 2020 and 2021, I served as faculty lead for a team of political science and public health researchers collecting and comparing policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic across the US states. Data reflecting state-level social distancing policies and other non-pharmaceutical interventions issued from March 2020 through July 2021 are available at covid19statepolicy.org. See also our articles on partisan patterns in the adoption of social distancing mandates, the adoption of mask mandates, and the easing of social distancing requirements. Our data also inform IHME’s COVID-19 forecasting and modeling efforts. | 
16-sep-20.
New publication: “Pandemic Politics: Timing State-Level Social Distancing Responses to COVID-19”, joint work with Kenya Amano, Bree Bang-Jensen, Nancy Fullman, and John Wilkerson, is published in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law. 31-aug-20.
New white paper: “Governor Partisanship Explains the Adoption of Statewide Mandates to Wear Face Coverings,” joint work with Kenya Amano, Bree Bang-Jensen, Nancy Fullman, Beatrice Magistro, Grace Reinke, and John Wilkerson. Also available on MedRxiv. See also media coverage in the Washington Post and UW News. 9-aug-20.
Fall course offered: Maximum Likelihood Methods for the Social Sciences is intended for graduate students seeking a deeper understanding of statistical inference, tools for analyzing discrete outcomes, and methods for general purpose model fitting. Contact me for permission to add this course. 16-jul-20.
New video: Bree Bang-Jensen and I presented “Pandemic Politics: Understanding State-Level Social Distancing Responses to COVID-19” (joint work with Kenya Amano, Nancy Fullman, Beatrice Magistro, Christianna Parr, Grace Reinke, and John Wilkerson) as part of a Population Health Colloquium hosted by the College of Health at Lehigh University. |
|