About

I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan. My research agenda focuses on the geography of poverty and the provision of health and human services.

I have a line of research on the provision of nonprofit human services nationally to rural and poor Americans at the county level. Nonprofit human services include services such as food banks, homelessness shelters, affordable housing, transportation assistance, emergency cash assistance, and other critical services. In another project, which was recently published in Race and Social Problems, I analyze the provision of nonprofit human services to Black, Hispanic, and Latino Americans at the county level. I also lead the first project to complete primary data collection identifying human services deserts. I draw on theories from the sociology of inequality and economic sociology to analyze how market-based safety nets serve vulnerable populations. 

In my postdoctoral fellowship research in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, I research vision care provision in safety net and nonprofit settings such as Federally Qualified Health Centers in the Newman-Casey and Woodward Labs.

I also have an applied line of research on federal human services programs including the Community Services Block Grant and the Rural Community Development grant program. The Community Services Block Grant is one of the largest federal nonprofit human services grant programs, supporting over 1000 Community Action Agencies in counties throughout the country. That line of research was developed during the National Poverty Fellowship, when I was embedded in the Data Science and Technology Team at the U.S. DHHS ACF Office of Community Services (OCS).

In my previous role in the U.S. DHHS HRSA Federal Office of Rural Health Policy, I provided staff support to the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services. I supported the work of the Committee on projects addressing the provision of federal human services programs, rural intimate partner violence, and rural homelessness. 

I am originally from Upstate New York, and I have also previously worked as a middle school English teacher in Durham Public Schools.