I am a Sociologist working at the intersections of crime & justice, environmental studies, and design for social innovation. My research examines how social and ecological systems shape — and are shaped by — processes of crime, punishment, and community reintegration. I have studied prison gardens and horticultural therapy, urban agriculture and community development, and the theory and practice of participatory and community-based research. Across these areas I am interested in how design thinking and sociological imagination can be brought into conversation to reimagine institutions and communities.

I have presented to national and international professional associations including the American Sociological Association, Design Research Society, American Society of Criminology, and the Italian Society for Social Studies of Science and Technology. I have also given invited lectures, workshops, and discussant appearances at institutions including the United States Forest Service, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Northwestern University, the Consulate General of Brazil in New York City, Massachusetts General Hospital, The Trustees of Reservations, and The Cambridge School of Weston.

I have been awarded and managed grants totaling more than $160,000 from the National Science Foundation, The Hearst Foundations, and other university programs in support of research and student programming. My research has received honors including the Robert Dentler Award for outstanding commitment to public sociology from the American Sociological Association, the Tishman Scholarship for commitment to civic engagement and sustainability from Parsons School of Design, and the Alper Award for engaged scholarship from the Boston College Sociology Department.

In addition to teaching at universities including Boston College and The New School, I have 15 years of experience in prison education, and I have taught in youth and adult education programs at nonprofits and community centers. Across these contexts, my teaching is grounded in the conviction that theory and practice must inform each other. I design courses and learning experiences that connect scholarly ideas to real-world situations, bringing students into direct engagement with the communities, places, and problems that course material addresses. Whether through fieldwork in Detroit and Boston, co-teaching with incarcerated students at Suffolk County House of Correction, or literacy instruction in a city jail, I aim to make the classroom a space where the world flows in and where reflection and theory have tangible stakes.

I approach teaching as a collaborative and humanistic practice. Rather than delivering knowledge from the front of a room, I work to build learning communities in which students' own experiences, emotions, and social contexts are treated as essential to the inquiry. I use a wide range of media — video, audio, image-making, spoken word, and hands-on fieldwork — alongside academic texts, and I encourage students to express what they know in diverse forms. Above all, I believe that learning happens most powerfully when students feel their whole selves are welcome in the room, when they are challenged to sit with difficulty and uncertainty, and when they can see themselves as agents capable of contributing to the transformation of the world around them.

My teaching has been recognized by a Scholarly Achievement Award for Teaching and Mentoring from the Society for the Study of Social Problems and a Donald J. White Teaching Excellence Award from Boston College.