I am an Assistant Professor at the University of Kentucky's Martin School of Public Policy and Administration. I also hold a courtesy appointment in the Department of Sociology and am a research affiliate at the University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research. I received my Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Policy from Harvard University and completed postdoctoral research at Cornell University.
My research focuses on housing, families, and poverty and inequality. My primary line of research uses multiple methods to study the experiences of families with children who live doubled-up in shared households. Other projects examine residential decision-making and family complexity. My research has been published in Social Forces, Demography, Social Problems, City & Community, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and Public Administration Review. My work has received support from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Joint Center for Housing Studies, Boston College Center for Retirement Research, Penn Social Science & Policy Forum, Harvard Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy, and the MacArthur Foundation. I have received awards from the Society for the Study of Social Problems Poverty, Class, and Inequality Division and Family Division and was a finalist for an American Sociological Association Family Section award.
I have taught or am teaching courses in quantitative methods, equity in public policy, and methods of program evaluation (in-person and online asynchonous).
I was a first-generation college student and received a BA magna cum laude with a sociology and anthropology major from Carleton College. I also hold a Master of Public Affairs from the La Follette School at the University of Wisconsin- Madison. Before graduate school, I spent a year in AmeriCorps working at Caritas of Austin as a case manager for people facing homelessness.