I am an Assistant Professor of Public Administration in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam.
I also hold an appointment as Associate Research Professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY).
Research Interests
My research explores how governments, nonprofit organizations, and those they serve navigate an increasingly digital world, with a particular focus on AI, social media, digital services, data-driven decision-making, and emerging technologies.
At the heart of my work is a true fascination with how technologies reshape the ways people interact with organizations, institutions, and one another. At the same time, I am also interested in how human values, organizational cultures, and governance systems shape the technologies we build and use. Using rigorous and novel (mixed) methods, I study how digital tools and technologies influence trust, decision-making, and citizen-state interactions while also examining how public and nonprofit organizations adapt to the opportunities and challenges that technological change creates. Ultimately, my research seeks to understand what good governance looks like in a digital society and how institutions can use technology to better serve the public good.
See my published research here: Google Scholar
Teaching
As a teacher and mentor, I enjoy helping students develop both technical and analytical skills while encouraging them to think critically about the role of technology in public life. Whether teaching research methods, data science, or the foundations of public administration, my goal is not simply to teach techniques or well-established theories, but to help students develop the habits of inquiry needed to navigate an increasingly complex world. Through hands-on learning, real-world examples, and interdisciplinary perspectives, I encourage students in my classes to ask meaningful questions, critically evaluate data and evidence, and think deeply about how public and nonprofit institutions can better serve society.
Research & Societal Impact
In 2024, I founded the Governance & Digital Experience (GovDX) Lab, an interdisciplinary research community dedicated to understanding how digital technologies are transforming governance, organizations, and citizen experiences. Through the lab, I collaborate with students, scholars, practitioners, and community partners to study the opportunities and challenges of governing in a digital age. By connecting rigorous research with real-world problems, the lab serves as a space for interdisciplinary collaboration, public engagement, and knowledge exchange across sectors.
Public Scholarship & Commentary
I believe that research should not remain confined to academic journals and spaces. Through public writing, speaking engagements, media contributions, and social media, I seek to make research on technology, governance, and democracy more accessible to broader audiences. I regularly share reflections on digital governance, algorithms and AI, public institutions, and internet culture through my writing and public engagement activities.
Selected Research Talks
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Civic Tech: The European Perspective
Presentation given at the pre-conference workshop “Civic Tech, Administrative Burdens and Public Management” I co-organized for the 2024 Public Management Research Conference (Seattle, Washington). The talk has now evolved into a working paper on the differences between civic tech in the European context compared to the U.S. and the potential drivers of those differences.
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Contesting Untrustworthy Algorithms in the Public Sector: The Role of Algorithmic Explainability
Presentation of research in progress to the Public Values research group at VU Amsterdam. Our research uses two pre-registered survey experiments to test the effect of algorithmic explainability (XAI) on individuals’ understanding of algorithmic decisions and their ability to detect algorithmic errors to understand how people make sense of inherently untrustworthy algorithmic systems and to what degree XAI can aid in contestability of flawed algorithmic decisions.
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What Do You Meme? Understanding Meme-Centric Public Communication Strategies and Citizen Responses
Presentation of research in progress given at the International Research Society for Public Management (IRSPM) Conference in Tampere, Finland in April 2024. This mixed-methods research examines U.S. government agencies at the local, state, and federal levels that are engaging in a unique social media strategy that leverages memes, pop culture, and internet “speak” to engage audiences. The strategies are, by all accounts, creative, experimental, and probably not what one would expect from a government social media account, but many have experienced social media success (e.g., gone “viral”). Yet, little is known about the impact of these non-traditional accounts beyond social media metrics. To address this, we will use a series of survey experiments to test the effects of the strategies we identified in our qualitative analysis of the social media data on outcomes such as trustworthiness, credibility, and reputation.
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UX Design Principles & Digital Citizen-State Interactions
B&P Research Seminar presentation on the conceptual framework I’ve built linking UX design principles to citizen-state interactions in the digital environment and applying it to the case of the Biden-Harris President’s Management Agenda and its emphasis on transforming the federal customer experience.
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Communicating the Evidence: Understanding Individual-Level Responses to Increased Transparency of the Evidence in Evidence-Informed Policies
Rockefeller Brown Bag presentation (February 2024) of a working paper on communication strategies for how governments can more effectively communicate evidence to the public in ways that promote understanding and support for the policies the evidence informs.
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Open Data and Usability
I presented descriptive results from my study on open government data portals and usability attributes at the International Conference on Open Data (November 30, 2022).