I am teaching a course in the fall introducing students to the intersection of media with state and local government in American political life.

I'm building a center that both studies the role of media in deliberative democracy and produces media projects that enrich American political and cultural discourse.

I am currently developing audio features that tell the story of America, multi-platform interactive media concerning political corruption and civic engagement in southern California, and a TV series (The Wire meets House of Cards with a dash of Entourage). I've served as VP of an innovative entertainment company, for which I still consult, producing family feature films.

I've conducting a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative research for public and private clients, helped create, manage, and expand multiple academic institutes, and evaluated over $50M in federal education programs. I've engaged in groundbreaking blogging, community/social network mapping, and opposition research.

I'm interested in what human nature, nature, and the common good are, and how our understandings of each of these affect the others - especially in medieval, modern, and particularly American political thought.

I am also preparing my dissertation, "The Meaning of the Public Good in the Rhetoric of Ratification," for publication; writing a journal article that serves as a review and analysis of the interpretation and influence of Federalist 10 and 51 over the course of American history; a journal article on the notion of "licentiousness" in the ratification debates; and editing a book on religious liberty.

At the rigorous "great books" program at Thomas Aquinas College, my undergraduate senior thesis, "In Defense of Beauty," explored the Beautiful in medieval thought (Thomas Aquinas) in relation to art and learning.

My academic fields are American Government (institutions, civic engagement, corruption, media, deliberative democracy) and Political Philosophy (common good, rights, nature, human nature, founding, aesthetics, regime forms).