About Me
About Me: Biography
Originally from Santa Rosa, California 
, I have lived in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Utah, Maryland, and San Diego. I speak Russian and some German and once studied Spanish and Arabic. My undergraduate degree is from Brigham Young University , where I graduated as the political science department valedictorian.
After working for brief stints at the U.S. State Department (Office of Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus) and the National Endowment for Democracy , I entered UCSD's PhD program in political science in fall 2004. Generally speaking, I am interested in public opinion, campaigns and voting, American state politics, and other topics in American politics.
I advanced to PhD candidacy in spring 2007 and expect to complete my PhD by summer 2008. My dissertation addresses strategic behavior by candidates and donors in U.S. gubernatorial elections. You can find more detail about some of my current projects on the research page. My CV is available here (PDF 
).
My wife, Janelle, is a professional San Diego harpist . Our son, Hyrum, was born on November 4, 2006.
About this Site
The bulk of this site was hand-coded in PHP, valid XHTML/CSS, JavaScript, and MySQL. Portions of the site rely on Wordpress MU . Some of the other websites I have designed are here and here .
Those little photos at the top of the site are random. Each time you load a page, a new set of photos appears. Just thought I'd clear that up, since some folks get confused.
Contact Info
To contact me, use the contact form. (You'll also find my office location, mailing address, and other contact information on that page.)