Community-engaged social scientist studying health + the built environment.

I am an Assistant Professor in Health Promotion and Community Health at the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health at Portland State University, teaching courses related to program planning and evaluation, urban and community health, health equity, and social justice. I am a community-engaged researcher studying the impacts of the affordable housing crisis and urban inequity on mental health and wellbeing among low-income communities of color. My ethnographic research projects examine the embodied experiences of housing insecurity and displacement pressure in changing neighborhoods. I am engaged in collaborative research projects that follow the impact of state-led neighborhood transitions on residents (highway expansion, public housing redevelopment), and documenting the impacts of unconditional cash transfers on the health of people experiencing homelessness. As a researcher studying topics of policy debate, I work in partnership with community groups to incorporate these findings into actionable change through participatory action research methods. My research has been published in numerous outlets including the Journal of Adolescent Health, Critical Public Health, SSM-Mental Health, and Geoforum. I have a PhD in Health and Behavioral Sciences from the University of Colorado Denver and an MPH in Health and Social Behavior from the University of California Berkeley.

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