Software
Open-source tools and R packages for quantitative social science built to make experimental design, data visualization, and archival data more accessible.
Interactive dashboards
European protest & coercion dashboard
Browse, visualize, and model Ron Francisco's European Protest & Coercion Data, the most comprehensive daily-resolution record of political contention and state repression in modern Europe. Four tabs: summary statistics, annual trends, a searchable event table, and interactive regression estimation.
Data: ronfran.ku.edu · Cite as: Francisco, R. (2000). European Protest and Coercion Data. University of Kansas.
Personalism in dictatorships dashboard
Explore a cross-national dataset measuring personalism in dictatorships via 21 binary indicators and bifactor 2PL IRT estimation. Six tabs: leader rankings, time trends, regional comparisons, indicator details, model diagnostics, and a full codebook.
With Lee Morgenbesser · Manuscript in progress
Election frequency and its political consequences
How often nations hold national elections since 1945, and whether voting more often tracks political division and political indifference. An interactive scatter with a fit line and correlation that recompute as you change the outcome, the period, the turnout source, or the regime types shown; a ranking of the most frequent electorates; elections worldwide per year; and a specification-curve explorer over 1,548 model specifications.
With Daisuke Asahara, Liang-Yu Ko, Sho Miyazaki, and Kiyoteru Tsutsui · Manuscript in progress
R packages
Browse the documentation for each package.
colorr
CRAN
Active
Color palettes for EPL, MLB, NBA, NHL, and NFL teams.
nomine
CRAN
Active
Classifies names by probable race/ethnicity and gender using the NamePrism and NamSor APIs. Useful for large-scale audit studies and correspondence experiments where respondent identity needs to be inferred from name data.
plotrr
CRAN
Active
Functions for visual exploratory data analysis with nested and hierarchical data. Coauthored with Michael J. Nelson.
repllm
GitHub
Active
Generates materials for survey experiments from a factorial design and helps researchers check them before fielding a study. Built on ellmer, it checks text length, readability, vocabulary overlap, and words that reveal the condition; collects blinded model ratings; and prepares blinded rating sheets for human coders. Model and human ratings use the same summaries and robust contrasts, making agreement and differences easy to inspect.
tufter
Tools for drawing and reviewing ggplot2 figures using Edward Tufte’s design principles. Includes range frames, slopegraphs, sparklines, direct labels, and checks of graphical design.
validatednamesr
GitHub
Active
A database of 600 names with 44,000+ evaluations across race, income, education, and citizenship, designed for experimental studies on race and ethnicity. Coauthored with Jae Yeon Kim, S. Michael Gaddis, John B. Holbein, Connor Guage, and William W. Marx.
Crabtree et al. (2023). Scientific Data, 10, 130.
Teaching Software
Kiln: AI-resilient active learning
A real-time active learning platform for university classrooms. Students join with a 6-character code (no accounts, no downloads) and participate in timed, peer-dependent activities that resist AI shortcuts by design. Activity types include Peer Critique, Socratic Chain, Peer Clarification, Evidence Analysis, and AI-powered Scenario exercises (solo and multi-persona).
Civic Town
A live cooperative simulation of Bonotti and Nwokora’s civic model of political finance. Students join with a class code and allocate civic credits across party vouchers and civic institutions, then observe the effects on democratic health indicators — voice, accountability, collegiality, turnout, and funding concentration. Designed to make abstract readings tangible in real time.
The Quota Lab
An interactive classroom tool for exploring electoral gender quotas and representation theory. Students design parliamentary reforms, shape a legislature, and discover what representation really means — drawing on Mansbridge (1999) and Celis & Childs (2020). Includes a parliament simulation game and a representation quiz.
NudgeLab
A 3D cafeteria simulation where students play as the new cafeteria director at Monash University. Over three days, they select nudge interventions to promote healthier eating and watch the consequences unfold in real time across four dimensions — effectiveness, justice, autonomy, and dignity. Designed for ATS1071 Week 10 (Food & Justice).
Using one of these tools in your research? I'd love to hear about it. Bug reports, feature requests, and coauthorship inquiries welcome.