About My Work

I’ve spent my career trying to understand how institutions meant to expand opportunity—higher education, work, and human services—can both uplift and constrain the people they’re meant to help. My research began with questions about why so many people hold on to their college dreams even in the face of major setbacks, and it’s grown into a broader inquiry about how institutions define merit, hope, and worth. This matters for both people's experiences and their outcomes.
 

I’ve studied how and why low-income parents return to school after crisis, and how employers make hiring decisions for entry-level positions.  I've worked to understand the value of social support in mental health recovery, and how people navigate the emotional and moral weight of striving in unequal systems. Across these projects, one pattern keeps surfacing: education and work are not only about skills or income. They are also about identity, dignity, and belonging.
 

My passion is to bring that lens to both research and practice. In 10 years with the Administration for Children and Families at the US Department of Health and Human Services, I supported researchers and collaborated with federal program staff who wanted to understand how human services programs, policies, or systems really work on the ground.  This includes how to make them fairer, less burdensome, and more effective. My goal is always the same: to connect rigorous evidence with the everyday realities of the people our systems are supposed to serve.