I am a joint PhD student in Political Science and in Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, where I focus on topics in political communication, political psychology, and political behavior in Western European multiparty systems. My methodological interests lie predominantly in survey methodology, with most experience in non-probability sample data stemming from voting advice applications. I study how we can reliably use such data in scientific public opinion research. Substantively, my research investigates public opinion around conflict, conspiracy beliefs, and how they interact, studied through the lenses of ideology and political parties.
You can find my Penn profile on the Annenberg School for Communication and the Political Science Department websites. I am being advised by Diana Mutz in Political Science and Yphtach Lelkes in Communication. I am affiliated with the Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics (ISCAP) and the Center for Information Networks and Democracy (CIND). In 2021-2022, I was the Miller & Lavigne Graduate Fellow and a University Graduate Fellow in Political Science at the Pennsylvania State University, where I focused on quantitative methods in political science research.
My work has been published by or is in press in journals such as European Union Politics, Acta Politica, Foreign Policy Analysis, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Journal of Health Psychology, Psychological Medicine, and the Nonproliferation Review. My work has been commissioned by NATO, by ministries, national media outlets, advocacy organizations, and think tanks such as the Clingendael Institute and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. My research has also featured in parliamentary commissions of inquiry.
In addition, I am a research fellow at the Kieskompas – Election Compass Institute where, between 2016 and 2021, I primarily developed Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) and conducted large-n opinion research. Currently, I lend my knowledge and expertise to my colleagues at the research institute, assist with VAA and survey design and analysis, and implement the skills and knowledge acquired through my doctoral program to further the scientific mission of the institute.
At Kieskompas, I have developed over 30 VAAs, the most notable of which are the ones for the Dutch parliamentary elections in 2017 (over a million responses) and 2021 (2.5 million responses), the Iranian local and presidential elections, the Dutch municipal elections in 2018 (for example Amsterdam), the European elections in the Netherlands, a European political persona tool, the US Democratic primaries in 2020, as well as a ‘Trump Meter‘ that has been disseminated in 8 countries, and has collected over 700,000 responses. Overall, more than 8 million voters have made use of VAAs I developed.