About

I am a PhD candidate in Sociology at UC San Diego. I study the future of work from the perspective of workers, with a particular interest in how people build security and make meaning of work. I employ mixed methods, using quantitative data to establish trends in behavior and qualitative data to uncover social psychological and organizational mechanisms.

A defining feature of contemporary work is uncertainty, as careers are unsettled by both economic and technological change. In one stream of work, I examine how early career workers, for whom these uncertainties are most acute, navigate them. Another (related) feature is changing attitudes about the centrality of work in peoples’ lives; a second stream traces the emergence and effects of these beliefs.

A final stream asks how professionals experience and manage political tension in their fields. In a project with Dr. Amy Binder (Johns Hopkins University) and Dr. Jeffrey Kidder (Northern Illinois University), we consider political tension in the professions across five papers focused on the case of libertarian academics.

My research has been covered by the Wall Street Journal, UC San Diego Today, The Last Show podcast, and ASA’s Economic Sociology section newsletter. Coverage of my work before graduate school leading start-up nonprofit organizations can be found in the Guardian and in the Washington Post.

My CV can be found at this link.