Curriculum Vitae

Education

  • Ph.D. Cultural Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis and the Universiteit van Amsterdam
  • Certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Washington University in St. Louis
  • A.M. Cultural Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis
  • B.S. Biomedical Science, The Ohio State University

Positions and Honors

Positions and Employment

  • University of Florida, Associate Professor of Anthropology, 2023-
    • Affiliate, Center for African Studies
    • Affiliate, Department of Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies
  • University of Florida, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, 2018-2023
  • Columbia University Population Research Center, Fellow, 2017-2018
  • Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health Department of Population and Family Health, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 2017-2018
  • Washington University in St. Louis, Department of Anthropology, PhD Candidate, 2014-2017
  • Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR), Health, Care, & the Body Group, PhD Candidate, 2014-2017

Other Experience and Professional Memberships

  • Council on Nursing and Anthropology, 2020-present
  • Society for Applied Anthropology, 2018-present
  • American Ethnological Society, 2016-present
  • African Studies Association, 2017-present
  • Council on Anthropology and Reproduction, 2012-present (Co-Chair, 2020-22)
  • American Anthropological Association, 2009-present
  • Society for Medical Anthropology, 2009-present
  • Fulbright Association, 2011-present
  • Sigma Xi, 2010- present
  • DONA International trained doula (birth attendant), 2013

Honors and Awards

  • University of Florida Research Foundation Term Professor, 2024-2027
  • University of Florida, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Teacher of the Year Award, 2022-2023
  • Society for Medical Anthropology, Leah M. Ashe Prize for the Anthropology of Medically-Induced Harm, Honorable Mention, 2022
  • Society for Medical Anthropology, Eileen Basker Memorial Book Prize winner, 2021
  • ReproNet, Adele E. Clarke Book Award, Honorable Mention, 2021
  • Society for Applied Anthropology Peter K. New Award, 3rdPlace, 2017
  • P.E.O. Scholar Award, 2015-2016
  • Society for Medical Anthropology Travel Award, 2015

 

Contribution to Science

Maternal Death in Health Facilities

My research on maternal mortality in hospitals in some of the first ethnographic work to specifically examine these spaces and their role in producing maternal deaths. By focusing on the logics, perspectives, goals and challenges facing healthcare workers and administrators, my work significantly expands our understandings of the causes and meanings of maternal death in low-resource settings. Through accountability mechanisms that force healthcare providers to choose their careers or women’s lives, they are put in impossible positions in which systemic change often becomes impossible. Women and their maternity care providers are often at odds, forcing providers into ethical positions that imperil the personally and professionally. The ways in which providers and women invoke, enact, construct, or evade shifting ethical boundaries form and reform the intersubjective social world of the maternity ward and continue to allow maternal deaths to take place in these settings. This work was funded by NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant No.1459486 and Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Grant No. P022A140021-003.

Research Support

Ongoing Research Support

National Science Foundation Cultural Anthropology Program Senior Research Award- 2148857

  • “The Effects of Pain Management on Pain Concepts and Experiences”
  • $350,000
  • 06/01/22-05/31/25 (PI)

Completed Research Support (within the past three years)

University of Florida Humanities Scholarship Enhancement Fund 2021

  • $11,975.47

University of Florida International Center 2020 Global Fellow

  • $5,000

National Science Foundation Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (SPRF)- 1714358

  • “Sociocultural Practices in Maternal Healthcare”
  • $158,000
  • 08/01/17-07/31/19 (PI)