I am the Leland and Dorothy Olson Chair in Arts and Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). At UNL, I am a professor in the Department of Political Science and resident faculty at the Center for Brain Biology and Behavior. I study the biology and psychology of politics and public policy.

In plain terms, I study why people think, feel, and act the way they do in politics, and also how politics affects their well-being.

My research has been published in Science, Brain and Behavioral Science, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, Current Biology and other peer-reviewed outlets. It has also been mentioned in The New York Times, the BBC, Newsweek and covered by numerous other national and international media organizations.

I write The Political Stress Lab newsletter on Substack and prior to becoming an academic was a journalist and political columnist. On this site you can find links to my Substack posts, information about some of the books I have written, and a little bit about the current research projects I am working on.