I am a social epidemiologist studying how institutional systems shape maternal and reproductive health and how evidence can be translated into care, accountability, and prevention. My work sits at the intersection of epidemiology, social determinants of health, and public policy. I focus on maternal substance use and congenital syphilis. My work also addresses gender-based violence and structural inequities in access to care. I integrate epidemiologic, qualitative, and computational approaches to examine how risk accumulates across systems and to identify intervention points that can interrupt this process.

Research Program

My research program centers on understanding how structural forces (e.g., policy environments, stigma, and institutional practices) produce and sustain maternal and reproductive health inequities. Rather than treating risk as an individual behavior, I conceptualize risk as structurally produced across interconnected systems.

This work is motivated by a core question: How can evidence be used to shift systems from surveillance and punishment toward prevention and care?

Program Area 1: Policy, Stigma, and Health Outcomes

I examine how punitive and stigmatizing policy environments influence maternal substance use, prenatal care engagement, and downstream outcomes such as congenital syphilis. Using population-level and spatiotemporal data, this work identifies how risk clusters geographically and temporally in response to policy and structural conditions.

Program Area 2: Institutional Pathways and Care Engagement

I focus on how healthcare and social service systems respond to individuals navigating multiple forms of vulnerability. I study how institutional practices (e.g., screening, referral, surveillance, and documentation) shape trust, disengagement, and access to care.

Program Area 3: Discourse, Perception, and Structural Context

I analyze public discourse surrounding substance use, pregnancy, and responsibility to understand how narratives shape policy, practice, and stigma. This work integrates qualitative analysis and computational methods using artificial intelligence and natural language processing to capture how social meaning circulates and solidifies into institutional action.

Methods

My work integrates:

• Epidemiologic and spatiotemporal modeling of surveillance and administrative data
• Mixed-methods approaches to understand lived experience and policy implementation
• Analysis of public discourse and policy environments to capture structural context

My current and future research focuses on translating these findings into:

• Policy-relevant evidence for maternal and reproductive health systems
• Intervention design to reduce care disengagement and prevent adverse outcomes
• Cross-sector collaborations bridging public health, clinical care, and policy