Ph.D., Florida State University, 2010

I am a feminist scholar specializing in the study of gendered responses to stigma, social devaluation, and social stress more generally, with a particular focus on the health and healthcare experiences of people with disabilities. I am a versatile methodologist with specific training and expertise in survey research and advanced health data analysis, as well as qualitative research methods. 

I regularly teach courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels on statistics; programming and data analytics; the sociology of health, illness and disability; gender and mental health; social psychology; and research methods, including the capstone course for the Health, Society and Populations major. 

I am co-editor of the Oxford Handbook on the Sociology of Disability (publication date: July 2023), which is the first handbook of its kind in this discipline. I am the deputy editor for two journals - Society and Mental Health and Sociological Perspectives - and serve on the editorial boards of several academic journals including the Journal of Aging and Health, Stigma and Health, and Health Sociology Review. 

I am also highly involved in professional advocacy. I am co-chair of the newly-formed Employee Affinity Group on Disability at UK and have chaired the Faculty Senate Disability Accommodations and Compliance Committee, as well as the Committee on the Status of Persons with Disabilities for the American Sociological Association. I have served as a faculty advisor for several student advocacy groups, including the Invisible Disabilities Alliance and Active Minds.

I study gender differences in stress and health outcomes across the life course, and have published more than 60 research articles on related topics using population-level and clinical data. A long-standing focus of my work is on gender- and disability-related experiences of stigma and discrimination. I also study collective trauma or macro-level stressors and mental health, which is reflected in my work on the Great Recession and the 9/11 attacks. Recent projects have investigated pandemic-related stress and stigmas associated with opioid use. At present, and supported by a Switzer Fellowship from the Department of Health and Human Services (NIDILRR), I am studying the long-term impact of the Great Recession on employment trajectories and their health effects among people with disabilities.