Biography
Research overview: My research agenda centers on how human population dynamics and behavior intersect with the environment to affect health. I describe demographic and health patterns and attempt to identify causal factors responsible for these patterns. My work falls into three main research strands. First, I examine the impacts of early life exposures (i.e., climate/disease/nutrition) on health both in the United States and in Sub-Saharan Africa. Second, I analyze how human behavior and population dynamics affect the spread and severity of infectious diseases. Third, I study spatial demography and urbanization, with a focus on health and climate change vulnerability. My research has been published in Population Development Review, Demography, Population Health Metrics, Biodemography and Social Biology, Demographic Research, and PLoS ONE.
Biography: I am currently an Associate Professor in the Sociology Department at the University of Washington (UW). I am also the Training Core PI at the Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology (CSDE) at UW. Previously, I spent ten years at the University of Minnesota where I was first an assistant then associate professor at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Prior to joining UMN, I was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at the University of Michigan’s Population Studies Center and Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health. I completed my PhD in Public Affairs in 2012 from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs with a concentration in demography from the Office of Population Research.