I am a Ph.D. student in Public Administration at Rutgers University–Newark, and a Fulbright Scholar from Chile. I hold a Master’s in Management and Public Policies (MGPP) and a degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Chile, where I am also affiliated with the Center for Public Systems in the Industrial Engineering Department.
My research lies at the intersection of behavioral public administration, public management, and comparative politics. I study how institutional rules, work arrangements, and political leadership shape bureaucratic behavior, government performance, and citizens’ evaluations of public services. Empirically, my work focuses on Latin America and the United States and uses mixed methods, including survey experiments, longitudinal surveys, administrative panel data, and qualitative interviews. Across my projects, I examine topics such as civil service systems, telework, procedural transparency, performance management, bureaucratic representation, and local government decision-making.
Recently, I was selected as a Mercatus Fellow in the Understanding Mainline Political Economy program at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University for the 2026–2027 academic year. I was also named a 2026 Founders’ Fellow of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) and selected to participate in the São Paulo School of Advanced Science on Regulatory Governance.
tomas.soto@rutgers.edu
School of Public Affairs and Administration
Rutgers University–Newark
111 Washington Street
Newark, NJ 07102
Tomás Soto Jara 