Kail Padgitt
Kail
is now in his
fourth year at the Public Choice Center. He was previously an undergraduate
at James Madison University where he received a bachelors in economics with
a minor in mathematics. Kail works with Dan Houser and David Levy on
developing experiments on leadership and cooperation. He also has done work
dealing with the growth of mega-churches in the US with help from Larry
Iannaccone. He is grateful to the Bradley Foundation for their continued
funding of his research.
Jennis Biser
Jennis
is a McNair Scholar working toward a joint
Ph.D. and J.D. in economics and law. Originally from Morgantown,
WV, she holds a BS in Economics from WVU. She has recently published two
articles on the topic of terrorism with Charles Rowley. She is now
working on her dissertation, applying public choice and law
and economic analysis to the study of property rights. Preliminary research of
Supreme Court takings and regulatory takings decisions throughout the last
century indicates that the approach taken by the Court has shifted from a
Lockean notion of rights to a Hobbesian notion as the composition of the Court
has changed in response to political influence.
More Students

Amanda Agan
recently finished her undergraduate education at George
Mason. She worked on several projects for Dr. Alexander Tabarrok as well
writing her own paper, "Sex Offender Registries: Fear without Function?".
She is looking forward to starting graduate school in the fall.
Christine
Brickman is a Ph.D. student
in Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America. She is also
the Associate Director of the Center for the Economic Study of Religion (CESR)
here at GMU. Christine has specific interest in social-scientific
approaches to the study of religion, and she has conducted research that
interprets trend data on clergy abuse through the lens of psychological
and rational choice theories. This work is currently under review in
"Sociology of Religion."
Eli Dourado
is a first-year Ph.D. student. Working
alongside
Professor Thomas Stratmann, he studies empirical Public Choice issues,
primarily in the area of campaign finance. Before coming to George Mason,
he worked as a legislative aide on Capitol Hill and as an economist for the
Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Clark Durant
is a Michigander and has been for twenty-six years. His research focus is on
constitutional design in ethnically divided societies. Last year he worked
on electoral system design and the tyranny of the majority problem.
Michael Makowsky
is an Earhart Scholar, Ph.D. candidate, and
graduate of the Sante Fe Institute Complex Systems Summer School. He has
published and forthcoming articles in The Journal for the Scientific
Study of Religion (with Laurence Iannaccone) and Journal of
Artificial Societies and Social Simulation. He is currently working on
his dissertation on moderate, sectarian and extremist religious groups.
Michael is also engaged in joint research on the role of speeding tickets in
local public finance and modeling R&D and increasing returns in a
competitive marketplace.
Matthew Mitchell
is completing his fourth year at the Center and is nearing
the end of his doctoral dissertation. His work focuses on the U.S. Supreme
Court and the way Court vacancies influence justices’ voting patterns.
Michael Thomas
is a second
year graduate student and holds an M.A. from the University of Missouri St
Louis and a B.S. in Commerce and Business Administration from the University
of Alabama. He worked in the mortgage industry for two years before
returning to Graduate School. His past research has been on the development
of financial institutions in the United States. He is currently studying
the history of ideas and public choice with a concentration on 19th century
Continental Europe.
Diana Weinert
is a second
year graduate student and received her undergraduate degree in business
administration from the University of Aachen in Germany. Her research
interests include law and economics and public choice. Her most recent
project is an examination of the social network characteristics of campaign
finance contributions to congressional committees and the impact of
seniority and reputation on campaign contributions.
Marek Zapletal
is a second-year
Ph.D. student. His interests are Public Choice, Industrial Organization and
Experimental Economics. Marek has worked as a research assistant for
Professor Laurence Iannaccone, and has also contributed to building
Iannaccone’s Center for the Economic Study of Religion.