I am a medical anthropologist and qualitative researcher whose work spans across a contemporary and socio-historical understanding of the intersections between healing and spirituality; medical science, expertise and law; health and wellbeing; healthcare and commodity; the body as culture; oral history and tradition; and children’s health and care. I have done extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Britain investigating Reiki practice with a focus on the practitioner, the client, and medical professionals. This research led to a description, within Reiki practice, of the relationship between spirituality and wellbeing and the values, such as love, connection, and care that exemplify this relationship. Underlying my work is an interest in an in-depth understanding of the everyday, lived experience of individuals and communities. I take a person-centered approach to understand how practices of the everyday inform culture and are in turn informed by culture, specifically medical culture. These concentrations are essential elements in my teaching and writing projects.

My previous research within the Center for Theology, Science and Human Flourishing was focused on the ethnography of laboratory science and virtues within science that underpin human flourishing inside and outside the lab. I am currently preparing publications with my collaborators from this project.

Recently, I worked as a postdoctoral scholar in Cancer Epidemiology, Prevention and Control within the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and exploring the DIPex (Database of Individual Patient Experience) research method. In addition to the multiple projects I was involved in at Johns Hopkins,  I was also an Advisory Board member of a Childhood Cancer study supported by the Oregon Clinical and Translational Research Institute (OCTRI) at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) in partnership with OCHIN Inc.

Currently, I am teaching anthropology courses at the University of Maryland in Baltimore County and working as a Research Scientist at Levine Cancer Institute. I have looked forward to conducting research in Supportive Oncology and am very excited about what the future will bring.