My name is Tom Maher (pronounced like the political office) and I am an academic working at the intersection of social movements, organizations, and political sociology. I am broadly interested in who participates in protests and how states respond to contention. My work primarily contributes to our understanding of threat dynamics, dissent-repression processes, and youth activism. I am currently working on two major research projects. The first is a National Science Foundation-funded project with Charles Seguin that examines social movement organization representation at congressional hearings during the 20th Century. The second is a project with Jennifer Earl that examines how state and private use of digital repression varies across contexts. I have also worked on projects analyzing resistance and control in the Nazi concentration camps and how social media influences how young people get involved in activism.

I am currently an assistant professor at Clemson University. I was previously a lecturer at Purdue University and, before that, a postdoctoral researcher on the Youth Activism Project at the University of Arizona. I completed my Ph.D. at Ohio State University in 2013.