My research focuses on vehicle residency, homelessness, ​critical narratives, public policy and outreach to marginalized people in the United States. I bring diverse perspectives to the field as a social scientist, previous outreach specialist for social services, and recipient of social welfare programs as a former homeless youth and teen parent.

In 2010, I began research on vehicle residency - or the habitation of vehicles in public parking - as an undergraduate at the University of Washington. My research received the Wienker Award for outstanding honors thesis in anthropology, and provided the opportunity to develop and direct the Vehicular Residency Research Program (VRRP) at Seattle University. I directed teams of VRRP field researchers to document vehicle residency from 2012 to 2013, and authored the Seattle University VRRP Advisory Report for the City of Seattle City Council - Human Services committee. In 2015, I joined the (US HUD mandated) Seattle/King County Continuum of Care coordinating agency, All Home, serving on the Executive Board, Governing Board and as co-Chair of the Policy Committee.

I am currently a US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at the University of Washington Department of Anthropology. Additionally, I work as a Liaison for the Unhoused Community for the City of Seattle, serve on the Mayor of Seattle's Innovation Advisory Council, and have led the documentation of regional vehicle residency for the annual point-in-time count of homeless and unhoused people since 2017. I am honored to serve on the University of Washington's interdisciplinary Critical Narratives Team and Homeless Research Initiative.

I will conduct my colloquium on December 7, 2018, and defend my dissertation in Spring of 2019.