I am a cultural and comparative-historical sociologist with research on international humanitarian organizations and movements, transnational advocacy, and organizational and political culture. My research looks at how global organizations and movements emerge, at their international dynamics, and at their interface with nationally-specific institutions and culture. In addition, I look at how organizations, professions, and groups generate beliefs about the common good, and how those beliefs translate into concrete institutional arrangements. I am currently an Associate Senior Lecturer at the Department of Sociology at Harvard University, where I teach courses on humanitarian NGOs, nonprofit organizations, civil society, and sociological theory.
My new book, Moral Minefields: How Sociologists Debate Good Science, is forthcoming with the University of Chicago Press. This book looks at the repertoires sociologists develop to maneuver morally controversial research, which allow them to weather or circumvent contentious subjects and the disputes they cause. I am also conducting comparative-historical research on student activism and the moral frameworks that animate it, using archival research and interviews. In addition, I am co-editor of the Handbook of the Sociology of Morality, vol. 2, which is under contact with Springer.
My first book, Above the Fray: The Red Cross and the Construction of the Humanitarian Relief Sector, was published in January 2020 with the University of Chicago Press. It examines the origins and development of the humanitarian NGO sector, and draws on archival research at the International Committee of the Red Cross and related repositories. The book is available to order on the University of Chicago Press website and on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Above the Fray received the 2022 Outstanding Published Book Award from the Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity Section of the American Sociological Association and the 2022 Peter Dobkin Hall History of Philanthropy Book Prize of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action.
My work has appeared in journals such as Rural Sociology, Sociological Theory and Theory & Society, and received the Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity Outstanding Published Article Award, the Global and Transnational Sociology Best Graduate Student Paper Award and an honorable mention for the Theda Skocpol Best Dissertation Award from the American Sociological Association, as well as the Marvin B. Sussman Prize from Yale University.