Research Assistant Professor, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
Faculty Affiliate, Center for Aging and Policy Studies
Faculty Affiliate, Center for Policy Research
CAPS Biography:
I am a social demographer and population health researcher, interested in documenting the many ways individual, institutional, and contextual level factors shape social patterns and trends in morbidity and mortality. In pursuing this line of research, I have examined gender, racial and ethnic, socioeconomic, and geographic differences in health behaviors, reported health, biomarkers, and specific causes of death (Annual Review of Sociology; Demographic Research; Demography; Preventive Medicine; Social Science Research). I am also a medical sociologist, interested in better understanding and evaluating the conceptualization and measurement of health in medicine and research. I have published highly cited work examining the meaning of BMI and obesity (Social Theory & Health; Sociology of Health & Illness), as well as the use of social determinants of health in medicine (Sociology of Health & Illness). I believe that critical perspectives on the measurement and modelling of health are necessary for improving knowledge of population health, as demonstrated in past and ongoing projects on self-rated health (Demography; Social Science Research) and the operationalization of “despair” (Social Science & Medicine). My current work addresses international and intranational variation in health, using both vital statistics and survey data to understand poor and declining health in the United States throughout the life course. I also have ongoing projects centered on the determinants and consequences of harmful behaviors like substance use and suicidality, as well as ongoing work developing multidimensional measures of health integrating different biological and social indicators. Broadly, my work relates to the CAPS signature theme of health and well-being.
Prior to my current position I was a Program Officer with the Committee on Population at the National Academy of Sciences. I was also a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Population Research Center and Center on Aging and Population Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin from 2021 to 2023. I received my PhD in Sociology at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2021, having received my BA in Sociology at The University of Chicago and then worked at NORC as a Research Analyst.
