I'm a Ph.D. candidate in the Government Department at Harvard University and an affiliate of the Center for American Political Studies and the Institute for Quantitative Social Science. My research explores political elites’ ability to shape Americans’ perceptions of the news media, and how those perceptions affect downstream political attitudes and behavior, including the tendency to believe mis- and disinformation. 

My dissertation research applies state-of-the-art natural language processing tools to more than eight decades of congressional floor speeches to examine how elite rhetoric affects trust in the news media. In a separate part of my dissertation, I critically reexamine the origins and evolution of American journalism's professionalization in the context of a fluid conception of First Amendment press freedoms to posit a novel theory for why journalism in the United States is uniquely susceptible to elite attempts to delegitimize it.

I have a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Cornell University and an M.A. in Media and Strategic Communications from The George Washington University. Prior to pursuing my PhD, I worked as a senior web editor at POLITICO, overseeing a team of copy editors and digital producers and guest writing the Influence newsletter covering lobbying and money in politics.

When I'm not hunched over my laptop, I like to play piano, cook Mediterranean food, and go on long runs. I currently split time between Cambridge, MA, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where my lovely wife Ashley works as a Foreign Service Officer. We have two adorable tortoiseshell cats.

I can be reached at dbeavers@g.harvard.edu. You can find my CV here.