I am a cultural and economic sociologist and an Associate Professor of Sociology and Cognitive Science at Lehigh University.
I was a 2025 SweCSS Visiting Senior Fellow with the Institute for Analytical Sociology and Department of Computer and Information Science at Linköping University in Sweden.
My research investigates cultural change and persistence and how social structures and embodiment shape what people think: how evaluations, ideas, tastes, and beliefs vary across wealth, status, education, affiliation, and social networks, and what remains common across those divisions. I use a variety of methods, but specifically develop computational methods for text and network analysis, with a commitment to open source solutions and computational minimalism: cheap deterministic approaches by default, probabilistic models where they add the most value. Language is central to all of this, so I spend a lot of time reading and thinking about it.
My book, Mapping Texts: Computational Text Analysis for the Social Sciences, with Marshall A. Taylor (Oxford University Press), is available from:
If you find the book useful, we’d appreciate you leaving a review! Also, check out the companion website with code from the book and other resources: textmapping.com
Born and raised in Montana, I attended Montana State University’s sociology program (as a first-generation college student). While there, I served in AmeriCorps, followed by the US Peace Corps in the Republic of Azerbaijan. Through Peace Corps’ Master’s International program, I completed a master’s in sociology and community and economic development at Illinois State’s Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development. After working in the banking industry in Japan and traveling throughout Asia, I completed my PhD in Sociology at the University of Notre Dame.
