Hello and welcome,

I currently work at the Associated Press as an Elections Data Scientist.

I am a PhD graduate from the Department of Political Science at Stony Brook University where I also remain an adjunct lecturer. My dissertation measured the risk aversion of elected officials in the U.S. Congress using speeches (text) from the Congressional Record. My committee was chaired by Professor Ryan Vander Wielen and included Professor Michael Peress and Professor Stanley Feldman.

The first chapter of my dissertation presented a methods-based approach for measuring traits of legislators using text/speech data. My second and third chapters examined how risk aversion influences the progressive ambition of House members and their legislative styles, respectively.

My Shiny app for playing versions of the iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma is available here. I continue to work on other Shiny apps and will update my website when they are ready for use.

Outside of work, I enjoy biking, Magic: The Gathering, RCs, GT3/4 racing, and coding.

Thank you for visiting my personal website! You may find my LinkedIn profile at the top of the page. You may reach me via email at samuel [dot] a [dot] jens [@] gmail [dot] com.