Welcome! I am a sociologist studying family policy, health disparities, and gender. Broadly, my work focuses on how categories of risk are constructed and institutionalized in American welfare and health governance. I explore these themes as an assistant professor at Florida Atlantic University, a position I assumed after a 2-year stint as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Brown University Watson Institute for Public and International Affairs. I completed my PhD in Sociology at the University of California-Berkeley.
My current book project examines how state and professional organizations shape gendered, racial, and socioeconomic inequalities in American maternal and child welfare. Related research focuses on the recent spike in US maternal morbidity, racial inequities in medical reporting of substance-exposed infants, and the development of risk discourses in social work and medicine. In a second stream of research, I study educational advocacy, organizational change, and religious community. My work has been recognized by the ASA Political Sociology section and supported by multiple fellowships and research grants, and I have published in the American Journal of Sociology, Qualitative Sociology, and Sociological Methods and Research.