Hello! 

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Stanford University, on the 2026–2027 job market. I study political behavior and political communication in the United States, examining how political elites use rhetoric to shape political identities, public opinion, and participation. Much of my current work examines these questions through religious rhetoric, as well as partisanship and political institutions. My dissertation examines how religious language is a strategic form of political communication that has been institutionalized within party politics.

Methodologically, my work blends computational text analysis, large-scale data collection, and survey experiments. My research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Politics and Religion, where my paper on congressional leadership and rhetoric received the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion's 2025 Student Paper Award, and in the edited volume Reconsidering Parties and Partisanship (University of Michigan Press), where I study the ideological behavior of independent leaners. Before Stanford, I worked as a research analyst at Ipsos, designing and analyzing survey experiments.

I am also a dedicated teacher, with extensive experience as a teaching assistant and Head TA across introductory political science, American politics, and public policy courses. I'm currently serving as the 2026-27 Graduate Teaching Fellow at Stanford's Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. My teaching emphasizes making complex political ideas accessible and encouraging active student participation.

Outside of academia, I enjoy hiking, reading Brandon Sanderson books, exploring new playgrounds with my daughter, and working on my farm in Stardew Valley. 

I can be reached at asvinod@stanford.edu