Overview
Joint-degree in Public Policy and Sociology.
Education
B.A. Cornell University '14, Psychology
M.P.P. University of Minnesota '19, with concentrations in Social Policy and Advanced Policy Analysis
Interests
Housing Policy; Urban Sociology; Neighborhoods; Residential Mobility; Families and Children; Inequality and Stratification; Demography.
Research
I pull from a range of methods to conduct research on housing precarity and urban change in the United States. Throughout my work, I try to challenge common assumptions about how housing is experienced by low-income families. Currently, I am pursuing three independent lines of research.
First, in my demographic work using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, I show how housing arrangements typically considered insecure can sometimes protect families from precarious moves and instead allow them to achieve goals of starting their own households. Second, in quasi-experimental work using linked administrative data, I study residential displacement caused by rental property sales and its consequences for racial inequality and educational disadvantage. Third, using a combination of interviews and participant observation, my qualitative work seeks to understand how real estate investors and developers respond to (and participate in) local policy, and how they make decisions about properties that affect housing affordability and transform urban landscapes.
In addition to this work, I am involved in two collaborative projects focused on racial inequality and injustice in Durham, North Carolina. The first is a project on a novel property tax relief program for low-income, longtime homeowners in partnership with the Durham County Department of Social Services. The second is on driver's license revocation and restoration in partnership with the City of Durham. Both projects, funded in part through Duke's Bass Connections program, have resulted in direct policy evaluation and impact in addition to training and research experience for undergraduate students at Duke.
My work is currently supported by the Russell Sage Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the W.T. Grant foundation, Duke University's Social Science Research Institute (SSRI), and the Office of the Provost. Some of my recent work on housing inequality, gentrification, and homelessness has been published in Urban Affairs Review, Housing Policy Debate, Social Service Review, Social Science and Medicine, and Socius.