I am a medical anthropologist with extensive training in linguistic anthropology and an
applied/engaged ethnographer. My research program explores how people navigate everyday ethical and
political dilemmas in providing and accessing care for psychiatric and substance use disorders in the
United States. I have fieldwork programs established in Los Angeles and Central Appalachia. 

My first book project draws on my research in  in LA and documents the ethical, political, and economic dilemmas that emerge amid psychiatric
crises for people with severe mental health disorders or disabilities and their professional or family caretakers. Alongside an extensive historical and contemporary archive, the book will engage the lived experience of medical and legal professionals, people who have been treated involuntarily and their families, and disability and healthcare activists to explore how legal articulations of disability, autonomy, health, and safety impact when, how, and which people can access institutionalized care. 

My second project is based on collaborative fieldwork conducted with China Scherz (Keogh School of Global Affairs, Notre Dame) in Central Appalachia. There, a complex of historical, economic, medical, and culturally extractivist policies have profoundly shaped public access to and perceptions of biomedical care. Our research is a 4-year longitudinal and person-centered comparative study of clinical and faith-based recovery programs. As people discern how and when to engage in faith-based and clinical recovery models, we document how these distinct care modalities shape individual and communal narratives of self-determination, hope, freedom, and well-being. In the process, we propose a "hopesick" model of interdependency that highlights and emphasizes the cultural, political, economic, and interpersonal contingency that animates our research collaborators' practices of recovery, relapse, and personal accountability.