Rose Razaghian is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Columbia University with a major in American Politics and a minor in Methodology. She received her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, in Political Science and Economics. Her dissertation, "Establishing Financial Credibility in the United States, 1789-1860," examines how the United States government created and secured its financial credibility during the ante-bellum period. Specifically, she argues that a combination of the institutional mechanism (including the absorption of debt incurred under the Articles, the Bank of the United States, and the Sinking Fund) and the reputation mechanism (timely payment of government debt, both principal and interest) allowed the United States government to become a creditworthy borrower. Her analysis includes both quantitative and qualitative methods. Rose is also interested in the relationship between the bureaucracy, the executive, and legislative branch; voting coalitions in Congress across policy areas; and agenda-setting patterns in Congress.