Now
This is a now page. It’s a snapshot of what I’m focused on at this point in my life and career.
Updated April 2026.
At work
I’m in my fourth year as chair of Government, Law & Policy at Arkansas State University and my fourth year directing the Institute for Rural Initiatives. Most of my administrative time goes toward faculty development, program review, and building out the IRI’s research agenda.
Research
My primary research focus is rural election administration – understanding how local election officials in small and rural jurisdictions manage elections with limited resources. I’m working with data from the Election Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS) and building tools to make rurality classification easier for researchers (see the rurality R and Stata packages).
I also have ongoing work in political methodology, particularly spatial econometric models and their interpretation.
Building
- rurality – R package for rurality classification and scoring
- rurality-stata – Stata implementation
- rurality.app – web app companion
Outside work
I live on Crowley’s Ridge in northeast Arkansas with my family.