Current Position: Happold Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Brief Bio: My primary research focus explores the consequences of racism and economic inequality on the intergenerational transmission and persistence of racial inequities in health over the life course. With the support of an NICHD K01 Mentored Research Award, I am studying the role of physiological dysregulation in stress reactivity as a pathway through which social inequality leads to differences in trajectories of chronic disease onset and severity among African Americans. My current research includes studies assessing the impact of racism and discrimination on biological markers of stress and stress related disease among African American adolescents and their parents, the consequences of discrimination for multiple generations of African American birth outcomes, the contribution of upward and downward social mobility for minority health disparities, and the role of early life course disadvantage for the development of metabolic risk in adolescence.
Penn State’s Demography Program: The PSU Demography program provided an exciting, diverse scholarly research environment that laid the foundations for my ongoing interdisciplinary research endeavors. The PSU Demography program provided extensive resources and training for success in both academic and non-academic career trajectories.