Associate Professor, Sociology
Faculty Affiliate, Center for Aging and Policy Studies
CAPS Biography:
My research expertise is directly aligned with CAPS signature themes of health and well-being and family and intergenerational supports, as well as the cross-cutting theme of specific populations. I study the links across the life course and generations in health, wellbeing, and life chances. Specifically, my work shows how demographic mechanisms such as marriage, fertility, and assortative mating create the family environments and resources that people draw on across the life course. I have studied health behaviors such as smoking and breastfeeding, the links between obesity and wages across the life course by race and gender, and the links between the characteristics that partners have at the start of marriage, such as education and smoking status, and health outcomes at older ages. My research is distinctive for bringing demography to bear on the study of aging and health inequality to capture the multidimensionality and dynamics that unfold across the life course to shape the outcomes we observe at older ages. The CAPS pilot grant that I received in 2023 was instrumental in focusing my research on the implications of assortative mating from younger to older adults.
