Research
Trained in both sociology and criminology, my research interrogates how the social environment shapes health, with a focus on racialized, classed, and gendered health inequities. I often employ self-reported and blood-based biomarkers including allostatic load and epigenetic aging to capture the varying stages of how the social world gets under the skin. By examining multi-level factors and the socio-political environment, I aim to contextualize how poor health develops and identify potential mechanisms to foster resilience to promote health equity.​​
Incarceration is a key social determinant of health.
The prison population continues to age, as do the individuals who entered adulthood at the height of the U.S. prison boom. My work situates incarceration as a notable contributor to poor mental and physical health for formerly incarcerated Black Americans.
Place and health are inextricably intertwined.
The social environment offers crucial context for the geospatial burden of chronic health conditions. My research contributes to our understanding on how ambient stressors in the neighborhood or state shape geospatial prevalence of stress-related conditions in the U.S.
Research in Progress
Processes of biological and social embedding shape disease risk over the life course.​
It is vital to consider the process through which life experiences come to be reflected in our health over the life span. My research in this area examines the biopsychosocial mechanisms through which both positive and negative life experiences become biologically embedded over the life course.
Quantifying the Contours of Coercive Control Across Institutions, Time, and Place
Extant research has largely taken for granted how crime control narratives and philosophies related to labor are central features of state institutions. To advance our understanding of how these are used as an apparatus for social control, I harness various data to model the distinct construction of social control types (e.g., punitive or non-coercive) across states and socio-historical contexts.
Examining Sources of Structural Violence as Determinants of Aging
The most common approaches to understanding (and addressing) poor health emphasize nutrition, exercise, and access to quality health care. I expand upon these to unmask the structural roots that stratify access to the social determinants of health, with a focus on racism, sexism, and politics as structural determinants of health.