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. In my work on the spectrum from houseless to precariously housed, I identify the mental stressors present with uncertainty, waiting, transition, and displacement pressures due to public policies and structural neighborhood-level interventions. I focus on populations that have been made structurally vulnerable through exclusion, racism, and discrimination. My research approach emphasizes lived experience through ethnographic, qualitative, and participatory research methods. I aim to contribute to changing the narrative in public health towards structural solutions to advance equity in mental health and housing.

My research has been published in numerous outlets including Social Science & Medicine, Critical Public Health, Journal of Adolescent 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.

I grew up in Portland and enjoy walks in the forest, cooking & baking, and reading dystopian fiction. I am always happy to meet with students interested in housing & neighborhood research and qualitative and/or community-based research methods.

CV available by request
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