I am an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock. I study international relations and religion, with a special interest in American Foreign Policy. I teach Introduction to Political Science, International Relations, American Foreign Policy, and Religion and Politics.

My research focuses on how religion motivates and influences political action.  In my dissertation, I look at the influence of religion on foreign policy through a multi-method approach.   I am particularly interested in what I call “providential beliefs”, a special category of religious beliefs composed of adherents who believe both that God has a plan and that they have a role to play in bringing it about.

The concept of providential beliefs is applicable to a number of topics in political science. I am currently working on a project that examines the influence of providential beliefs on the foreign policy attitudes of Americans, and recently contributed a book chapter on religiously-motivated political violence in Iraq to an edited volume on the conflict to be published by Ashgate in the coming year.

I am also working with Amber Boydstun of the University of California Davis on a project to examine media and presidential frames of the war on terror. The use of religious rhetoric to discuss the war on terror is also of interest to me.

Please feel free to click around and make yourself at home. There is mostly academic information here, but you may run into a few travel photos and some family news as well.

Thanks for visiting!