Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor of Government at Smith College in Northampton, MA. Prior to joining Smith’s faculty, I was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science and Policy Studies at Grinnell College in Grinnell, IA. I received my Ph.D in Government from Cornell University in 2021.

My research interests include legislative institutions; Congressional oversight and investigations; partisan polarization and gridlock in federal and state legislatures; political networks (among legislators, legislative staff and interest groups); federalism; and the role of gender in legislative behavior. I’m also interested in the influence of congressional and federal agency staff on member/executive preferences. I spent the 2019 calendar year in Washington, D.C. working for the majority staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform as the Project on Government Oversight's (POGO) 2019 Congressional Oversight Fellow. My research has also been supported by the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy. 

I am a native of Brooklyn, NY and hold a B.A. in History from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI; an M.A. in Political Science from Boston University in Boston, MA; and an M.A. and Ph.D in Government from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. I love reading and writing fiction, animals of all kinds (including and especially my dog, Maurice), and musical theater (my all-time favorites are Company, Sweeney Todd, South Pacific…and, yes, Hamilton.)

Please feel free to contact me at any time at cleavitt@smith.edu.