I am a sociologist and population health researcher studying how social and economic inequalities shape health and health care across the life course, with a particular focus on cognitive aging and end-of-life outcomes.

My research examines how experiences of economic insecurity, poverty, and disadvantage accumulate over time to influence cognitive health, health behaviors, and access to care in later life. I am especially interested in understanding how structural inequalities — including disparities in labor market experiences, financial stress, and health policies — contribute to differences in cognitive functioning, dementia risk, and the quality of care at the end of life.

Much of my work uses large-scale survey and administrative data to study these processes in the United States. Current projects examine how occupational inequalities contribute to gender disparities in dementia risk, how neighborhood poverty shapes cognitive outcomes, and how racial and socioeconomic disparities influence patterns of advance care planning, hospice use, and death quality.

I am currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University, where I am also affiliated with the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society. My research has been supported by the National Institute on Aging, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Alzheimer’s Association. Prior to joining Vanderbilt, I held academic positions at the University of California, Riverside and the University of Oxford.

You can find my CV here.