Principal Investigators

Alexander C. Furnas, PhD

Postdoctoral Scholar, Northwestern University
Research Assistant, University of Michigan

Alexander (Zander) Furnas (Ph.D., University of Michigan) is a postdoctoral scholar at the Center for Science of Science and Innovation at Northwestern University. He specializes in the role of information and expertise in the policymaking in the United States. His dissertation examined the conditions under which Congress uses privately provisioned information produced by outside organizations in the policymaking process. He was a co-principal investigator of both the 2017 and 2019 Congressional Capacity Surveys. His research has been published in American Political Science Review, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Interest Groups & Advocacy, Applied Network Science, and Research & Politics. More generally, he studies the politics of science and expertise, Congress, interest groups, policy making and elite political behavior using survey, text analysis and network methods.

Timothy M. LaPira, PhD

Professor of Political Science at James Madison University
Faculty Affiliate at the Center for Effective Lawmaking at the University of Virginia

Tim LaPira (Ph.D., Rutgers University) is associate professor of political science at James Madison University in Virginia and faculty affiliate at the Center for Effective Lawmaking at the University of Virginia. His expertise is on Congress, interest groups, and lobbying. He is co-author of Revolving Door Lobbying: Public Service, Private Influence, and the Unequal Representation of Interests (University Press of Kansas, 2017) and co-editor of Congress Overwhelmed: The Decline of Congressional Capacity and Prospects for Reform (University of Chicago Press, 2020). He has written more than twenty peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and serves on the editorial boards for the academic journals Legislative Studies Quarterly and Interest Groups & Advocacy. He previously worked on Capitol Hill as the American Political Science Association Public Service Fellow at the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress and as a legislative assistant to a member of Congress in the 1990s. LaPira was also a researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics, where he was responsible for developing the Lobbying and Revolving Door databases on OpenSecrets.org.

Advising Scholar

Richard Hall, PhD

Professor of Public Policy; Professor of Political Science, Gerald R. Ford School or Public Policy, University of Michigan

Richard L. Hall (Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is a professor of political science and public policy and serves as an advisor on this project. His research interests focus on American national politics. He has studied participation and representation in Congress, campaign finance reform, congressional oversight, issue advertising, health politics, and health policy. He is currently writing a book on interest group lobbying and the role of political money in Congressional policy making. Rick is the author of Participation in Congress (1996). He is a recipient of the Richard F. Fenno Award from the American Political Science Association, the Pi Sigma Alpha Award from the Midwest Political Science Association, and the Jack L. Walker Award from the American Political Science Review. Prior to coming to the Ford School, he served in a staff role on Capitol Hill. At the Ford School, Rick teaches courses on the politics of policy analysis, policy advocacy, campaign finance reform, and the politics of health policy.