Hello! I am an incoming Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland. I earned a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from the University of St. Thomas in 2011 and a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy in 2016. In 2023, I earned my PhD in Sociology & African American Studies from Yale University.

My scholarship explores how historical and contemporary notions of safety influence the ways that Black people organize their lives. More broadly, this research is concerned with utilize rigorous, mixed-methods approaches to advance understandings of how racial violence, police violence, and resource deprivation influence perceptions of safety in the United States in the past and present. My current projects examine (1) the influence of gentrification and resource deprivation on policing practices and Black Americans’ perceptions of community safety in Cincinnati, (2) the evolution of the “defund” mandate in U.S. politics, (3) the health consequences of carceral violence and racism in the U.S., and (4) the causes and consequences of U.S. lynchings. To pursue this research agenda, I use historical methods, qualitative interviews, statistical analyses, and computational methods.

My research can be found in interdisciplinary journals including Sociology Compass and Health Services Research. Additionally, my work has benefitted from generous funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Health Policy Research Scholars Program and Ford Foundation and non-monetary support from the Institute in Critical Quantitative, Computational, & Mixed Methodologies. In 2021, my Sociology Compass publication received an Honorable Mention for the 2021 Best Graduate Student Paper Award from the American Sociological Association’s Theory Section.