I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Fordham University Rose Hill campus in the Bronx where I teach Introduction to Politics, Introduction to U.S. Politics, Racial and Ethnic Politics, Latina/x/o Politics in the U.S., and Political Participation. I also continue to serve as the only Independent commissioner on the New York State Independent Redistricting Commission along with nine other commissioners to conduct the redistricting process for the 2020 cycle.

My research on Latin@/x/Hispanic politics, Puerto Rican politics in the United States, and self-reports in survey research has been published in Political Research Quarterly, American Politics Research, Journal of Racial and Ethnic Politics, and Centro Journal.

I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science a the University of Massachusetts – Amherst, where I conducted research in the fields of American politics, political psychology and survey methods. My dissertation titled Voter Turnout Overreports: Measurement, Modeling and Deception focused on turnout overreports in political surveys. In it I studied how turnout overreports affect predictive models of participation, testing the assumption that overreports are caused by socially desirable responding, and identifying the external (social & contextual) and internal (psychological) motivations for falsely reporting participation in elections.

I hold a Masters of Professional Studies in Political Management from the Graduate School of Political Management at The George Washington University, and received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Puerto Rico – Río Piedras. I am also an alumnus from the APSA Ralph Bunche Summer Institute Class of ’06 held at Duke University.