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Overview


I am a PhD candidate in Clinical Psychology at Duke University and a von der Heyden Global Fellow at the John Hope Franklin Center. My research focuses on how community, social, and cultural systems shape mental health risk, promotion, and intervention. I am especially interested in using clinical evidence to develop multilevel interventions that support individual mental health by strengthening families, institutions, and communities.

As a part of Dr. Eve Puffer’s Global Mental Health Lab, I have helped to develop, adapt, implement, and evaluate interventions in the US, Kenya, Liberia, and South Africa. My primary focus has been on a multilevel intervention in Eldoret, Kenya targeting family-level processes key to child mental health outcomes. My dissertation research describes how lay counselors providing in-home family counseling fit within and change families’ existing social support networks. 

I grew up in Tanzania and Kenya and got my bachelor’s degree in psychology from Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota. After graduating, I worked with Alex Tsai at Massachusetts General Hospital for two and a half years as an on-site project coordinator for a longitudinal microenterprise, water security, health, and social network study in Mbarara, Uganda.

Current Appointments & Affiliations


Recent Publications


Embedding Positive Emotions Activities in a Family-Strengthening Intervention to Enhance Receptivity and Engagement

Journal Article Journal of Prevention and Health Promotion · April 2025 Fostering participant engagement in behavioral interventions, especially those delivered via videoconferencing and with families, is challenging. Drawing on social-psychological literature on positive emotions and known emotion-action tendency sets ... Full text Cite

Social Vulnerability, COVID-19, Racial Violence, and Depressive Symptoms: a Cross-sectional Study in the Southern United States.

Journal Article Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · December 2024 BackgroundIn March 2020, the novel 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was declared a pandemic. In May 2020, George Floyd was murdered, catalyzing a national racial reckoning. In the Southern United States, these events occurred in the context of ... Full text Cite

Water Treatment Practices and Misperceived Social Norms among Women Living with Young Children in Rural Uganda.

Journal Article The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · September 2024 Access to water safe for consumption is critical for health and well-being, yet substantial structural barriers often necessitate household action to make water safer. Social norms about water treatment practices are understudied as a driver of personal wa ... Full text Cite
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