About me

I am an Assistant Professor at Rutgers University in the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. I was formerly a NIA Postdoctoral Fellow with the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan and completed my Ph.D. in Public Policy at Cornell University in 2021, with a concentration in Sociology and minor in Demography.

I am broadly interested in how public policy and community context matter to the longstanding link between health and poverty. I use multiple methodological and disciplinary approaches to study the U.S. welfare state, from the historical development and politics of policymaking to the spatial distribution, qualitative experience, and sociodemographic impact of safety net policy.

The main areas of my scholarship examine the health care safety net—specifically the Community Health Center program and Medicaid—as well as federal place-based policies, which target areas of concentrated disadvantage. I also study the demographic connections between family, gender, race/ethnicity, and public policy.

My work has been published in outlets including Social Problems, Social Forces, Social Science & Medicine, Population Research and Policy Review, and Journal of Marriage and Family. I have received support from funders such as the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy and the Fahs Beck Fund for Research and Experimentation, as well as recognition for the Best Comparative Policy Paper Award from APPAM and the Ronald Burt Outstanding Student Paper Award from ASA's Economic Sociology Section.

You can view my CV here.