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.
I am a public management scholar who studies how government work is organized, managed, and shaped by politics. My research examines how public employees are selected and managed, how political leadership and electoral incentives shape bureaucratic behavior, and how these arrangements affect public service delivery and citizens’ experiences with government. Empirically, my work focuses on public organizations and local and subnational governments in Latin America and the United States. Methodologically, I use survey experiments, longitudinal surveys, administrative panel data, qualitative interviews, and mixed-methods research designs.
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 