I am a political theorist whose research examines how practices of meritocracy shape and sustain the political legitimacy of liberal democratic states. My work sits at the intersection of liberalism, democratic theory, and public administration.

My dissertation, Meritocracy: The Smiling Surface of the State, investigates the civil service and education systems in the United States and the United Kingdom from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. Focusing on landmark reforms such as the Northcote–Trevelyan and Pendleton Acts, it traces how the ideal of merit came to underpin modern notions of fairness, obligation, and state legitimacy.