Biography
I received my PhD in anthropology from the University of Arizona. Following graduate school, I worked in nonprofit and corporate settings conducting research in the areas of substance abuse, education and poverty, childhood obesity, and school climate. I then served for five years as the Director of Scholar Programs at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico before returning to Texas State University, my undergraduate alma mater, to accept a faculty position.
Research Interests
I am anthropologist who explores contemporary social issues related to youth including social media, gender and identity, body image, and obesity. My most recent research examines self-presentation, emotional expression, and sociality among college students on social media. Funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, (award #1745222) this project also explores ethical and methodological challenges of conducting long term participant observation in social media.
In 2022, with support from another National Science Foundation grant (award #2203209), my team conducted customer discovery interviews as part of the I-Corps program to explore a potential commercial solution to social media dependence that could mitigate the effects of "always on" technology culture.
In 2022, I also began working with Dr. Kate Spradley to ethnographically explore decision-making processes surrounding the treatment of unidentified human remains by law enforcement and other agencies along the south Texas border in order to understand procedural gaps that give rise to the long-term dead (human remains that are buried and forgotten). Our goal is to provide insights that can inform the development of strategies to help jurisdictional authorities follow state laws in processing unidentified human remains. This project draws on my earlier work as a practicing anthropologist exploring institutional culture, decision-making, and collaboration.
In 2022, with support from another National Science Foundation grant (award #2203209), my team conducted customer discovery interviews as part of the I-Corps program to explore a potential commercial solution to social media dependence that could mitigate the effects of "always on" technology culture.
In 2022, I also began working with Dr. Kate Spradley to ethnographically explore decision-making processes surrounding the treatment of unidentified human remains by law enforcement and other agencies along the south Texas border in order to understand procedural gaps that give rise to the long-term dead (human remains that are buried and forgotten). Our goal is to provide insights that can inform the development of strategies to help jurisdictional authorities follow state laws in processing unidentified human remains. This project draws on my earlier work as a practicing anthropologist exploring institutional culture, decision-making, and collaboration.