I am interested in two primary areas of research:

1) Understanding the socio-cultural influences which drive the unique spatial patterns of diverse, immigrant, and/or traditionally difficult-to-survey communities; both delineating the factors which affect their timelines of formation and dissolution, as well as their levels of segregation and diversity.

2) Developing new statistical models which can incorporate sparse datasets in order to allow for more robust statistical analysis of these aforementioned neighborhood types, thereby giving us better tools to glean insights about the individuals who reside in these communities, and how they become incorporated into the fabric of our society over time. Ultimately, in order to serve under-surveyed people and direct aid to them, you must first prove they exist.

In the end, I am interested in how space and place obscure bodies from society’s formal sight, and how space and place also write inequities into the body, further creating a cycle of disadvantage, invisibility, and hardship for marginalized communities. My methods include both critical reflexive inquiry, and rigorous statistical methods, but my ultimate goal remains the same—creating a deeper understanding of the diversity our country contains, and how to protect it.

I received my B.A. in Economics with a minor in Anthropology from Wellesley College, a small traditionally women’s college outside of Boston. I was born in Takoma Park, MD (coincidentally known as the Berkeley of the East), grew up in Montgomery Village for the first part of my life, and then spent the remainder of it in Rockville, MD, where my entire family still lives. I have lived and worked in a few other places since then.