I am currently a Postdoctoral Associate at the Department of Political Science at Duke University, having started in Fall 2023.

My research operates at the intersection between political theory, the history of political thought, the philosophy of language, political science, cognitive psychology, and rational choice. My interdisciplinary background reflects my philosophy as a researcher: I value collaborative research that emphasises shared methods and approaches across disciplines. Specifically, my research is concerned with interrogating topics and questions in empirically informed political theory. Specifically, I draw on empirical methods to address concerns in politics, philosophy, and economics, contemporary political theory, and the history of political thought. In doing so, I apply my research to concepts such as political representation, democracy, and freedom.

My primary focus and research agenda interrogates the relationship between normative democratic theory and electoral rules and institutions. I suggest that democratic theory requires better engagement with actual electoral laws and practices. The way we conceptualise features of democracy is often contingent on an examination of electoral institutions such as compulsory voting and political behaviour including strategic voting. These projects emphasise the ability of central ideas in politics, philosophy, and economics to benefit our understanding of democratic institutional design.

My second research agenda and book project argue that a recent theory from the philosophy of language – semantic externalism (the idea that meaning is a product of factors external to a speaker) and Saul Kripke’s causal theory of reference – can form the basis for an original approach to understanding the history of political thought. I suggest that this approach is more coherent than existing, dominant methods in HPT such as Cambridge School contextualism.

My third agenda examines intuition use in contemporary political theory. I identify the myriad of ways that political theory and philosophy draw on intuitions to support various conceptual claims. My projects in this area address the need for political theorists to ensure they are sensitive to facts about the world, such as democratic institutional design, when using intuitions. I also examine the metaethical commitments that political theorists draw on when employing intuitions, as well as the question of whether alternative methods, such as AI, are better alternatives to intuition use.

I completed my PhD at the School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University, under the supervision of Professor Keith Dowding. I also hold an undergraduate degree in International Relations with first-class honours and a Bachelor of Laws with second-class honours.

My work has so far been published in The Journal of Politics, The Journal of the Philosophy of History, Political Studies Review, The Journal of Political Science Education, and Commonwealth and Comparative Politics.