I am a PhD candidate in the sociocultural anthropology program at Southern Methodist University, with a concentration in medical/environmental anthropology. I am a member of the Cairns Lab and am advised by Dr. Maryann Cairns. I have also worked as a graduate research assistant under Dr. Eric Bing in the Center for Global Health Impact.

Broadly, I study resilience and political ecology of health. I have a passion for mixed methods and transdisciplinary research, and for translating that research into improved policy and programming approaches in lower-resourced settings. Learn more about my research here.

I graduated from the University of South Carolina’s South Carolina Honors College in 2013 with a BS in Public Health, and graduated from University of London/London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2016 with a MSc in Global Health Policy.

As a doctoral candidate, I have trained on field epidemiology for bilingual water/sanitation research in Costa Rica and research project management in Macedonia’s Lake Ohrid region. In 2015, I attended field school at the Centro de Investigación y Capacitación Rio Los Amigos (CICRA) Field Station in the Madre de Dios region of Peru, working on a community disease ecology investigation. I also conducted public health/community capacity building research in Ghana’s Central region in conjunction with the NGO Health Protection and Environmental Sanitation (HEPENS). Prior to beginning graduate school, I worked on women’s empowerment, education, and public health projects for the AMAR International Charitable Foundation in Washington, D.C. as well as on epidemiology, mental health, and crisis management for Peace Corps Headquarters.

I am a recipient of SMU’s Moody Dissertation Fellowship for the 2021-2022 academic year. I also received a Fulbright U.S. Student Award for the 2019-2020 academic year to study connections between reforestation strategies and health in Costa Rica. This was mentioned in a press release, available here. In 2017, I received a Maguire Fellowship to study ethics and inclusion at summer camps at a Dallas area nature center, mentioned in the August issue of SMU Magazine.