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Overview

Welcome! I am a postdoctoral fellow in the Poverty and Inequality Research Lab at Johns Hopkins University, and I use mixed methods to study socioeconomic inequality in educational opportunities and experiences. I do three strands of work:

• Evaluating policies and practices to increase equity in resource and opportunity provision (and developing theoretical accounts for why these policies and practices may not be effective)
• Understanding people’s class-embedded experiences, perspectives, values, and beliefs (and developing theoretical paradigms informing how research can be more asset-based)
• Analyzing how other social statuses, including gender, race/ethnicity, geography, and religion, differentially shape experiences within and between socioeconomic groups

My work uses quantitative descriptive, quasi-experimental, and qualitative methodologies, and I have experience analyzing large national datasets, administrative data, and original interview data. I have work published or forthcoming in American Sociological Review, American Educational Research Journal, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, and Education Policy Analysis Archives, and my work has received media coverage from The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Times Higher Education. I have also published public-facing work with Brookings’s Brown Center Chalkboard as well as Inside Higher Ed.

I earned my PhD in sociology of education and education policy, as well as my MA in sociology, from Stanford University. Before that, I earned a BA in sociology and creative writing from Emory University and taught 10th grade English (World Literature) in my hometown of Griffin, GA. I am passionate about reading (especially science fiction/fantasy), creative writing, and trying new recipes.