About Me:
I am currently a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Chicago, in the Department of Comparative Human Development. I am interested in how people create, act upon, and are impacted by bodies of shared meaning around specific ideologies, particularly when one person holds two or more (contradictory) ideological frames at the same time but must privilege one over the other(s) for professional reasons. For example, regarding birth doulas in the US (the focus of my dissertation), while the doula profession emerged out of the women's health movement of the 70s, doulas practicing now must decide how to embody and enact the movements' foundational ideologies, but also how to succeed professionally within the very institutions these foundational ideologies seek to challenge and change.
I am also interested in how people approach the question of whether or not they are "good" at what they do professionally, and how their answers relate in any way to their overall feelings about whether or not they, themselves, are "good" people; additionally, I am interested in how people in caregiving occupations, or occupations that require emotion work or emotional labor on the part of the professional, see their jobs as extensions of who they are as people. Furthermore, do their professional "caring" responsibilities bleed into their daily (non-professional) lives? How much does the "caring" that one does does during the course of his/her workday become internalized within him/her as a kind of moral responsibility to all people, thereby influencing how they interact with their wider world?
My research interests also include issues around gender politics, structural discrimination and violence, professionalization, expertise, work and career choices across the lifecourse, cross-cultural communication and understanding, cultural competency, tools for mitigating structural violence and inequalities, cultural diversity in professional and community landscapes, power and empowerment, humanitarian organizations, and individuals' navigational strategies within and around complex organizations.
Area(s) of Training
anthropology, applied anthropology, cultural anthropology, ethnography, medical anthropology, medical sociology, medicine, psychology, other
Area(s) of Expertise
Qualitative Research; Ethnography; Mixed methods; Teaching; Workshop facilitation and organization; Interviewing; Focus groups; Project management; Study design
Current Area of Employment
PhD Student
