Michael Olson is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. His research and teaching focus on how electoral and legislative institutions affect legislative representation in the United States, and his work draws on a wide variety of data from across American history and different levels of government. His work has been published in the Journal of Politics, Quarterly Journal of Political Science, and Political Behavior, among other outlets. He is currently working on a book manuscript exploring the relationship between Black disenfranchisement and state legislative politics in the American South.