I'm a sociologist and ethnographer who earned my PhD in 2023 from Cornell University. I'm currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Center for Research on Educational Opportunity at the University of Notre Dame.

 

My research interests sit at the intersection of race, place, and institutions, considering how this nexus shapes the holistic life experiences of children, youth, and families. I use qualitative methods, including ethnography and interviews, to explore how social, cultural, historical, and political factors create and maintain inequality within and through punitive and surveilling institutions such as schools, the criminal legal system, and the child welfare system.

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My current book project, A Child's Place: Power and Punishment in American Schools draws on 2 years of ethnographic research at a rural, predominantly Black public middle school in the Louisiana Delta to illustrate how U.S. schools construct a 'place' for Black children that is separate, subordinate, and suspect. (For more from this ethnographic project, check out this article in Sociology of Race and Ethnicity).

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Ongoing collaborative work with Anna Haskins on the Systems and Schools Study considers how other surveilling institutions – the child welfare system, criminal legal system, and immigration system – influence families’ engagement with schools. This is a multi-site study with interviews of over 80 system-involved families and school personnel to date.

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I enjoy teaching and mentoring in the areas of qualitative methods, sociology of education, race and ethnicity, punishment and criminology, children and youth, rurality, and inequality. My work has been published in Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, American Journal of Men’s Health, Journal of Mixed Methods Research, Sociology Compass, and Oxford Bibliographies of Sociology.

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Before Cornell, ​I spent 4 years as a Research Analyst at Westat, a social science research firm in Rockville, MD, and also worked in research and evaluation at education nonprofits, including Facing History and Ourselves and Big Brother Big Sister of America.​ In addition to my academic work, I've spent years consulting and serving as a Director of DEI in the corporate sector, blending research, storytelling, and strategy to drive systems and culture change in organizations.

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I grew up in a small town in Maine, and then worked my way down the East Coast, pursuing my BA at Emmanuel College and a Master of Public Health from Drexel University, where my work focused on racial health disparities. 

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When I'm not working on manuscripts or crunching on Takis with middle school students, you can find me listening to 90s neosoul, being the most amateur of photographers, making a mess in the kitchen, and training my nieces and nephews in the art of a well placed side eye.

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