*** This website is now out of date. Please visit my current website at www.michael-lerner.com ***

I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Political Science department and the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. I study comparative environmental politics with a broad interest in questions related to challenges and strategies for adopting timely policy responses to environmental change. My research focuses in particular on policy advocacy, including corporate lobbying on climate change and the effects of transnational advocacy networks on the innovation and diffusion of environmental policy. I have published my work in the American Journal of Political Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and other peer-reviewed journals.

My dissertation examines the impact of transnational advocacy on the development of national environmental policy. Through this project, I aim to understand the circumstances under which interactions between policymakers and transnational advocates systematically lead to increased government leadership in the adoption and spread of new environmental policies.

Before coming to the University of Michigan, I worked as a research associate at the Environmental Law Institute in Washington DC. I received my B.A. from the University of Michigan in Political Science and French with a minor in Earth and Environmental Studies.