Exploring how law, institutions, and structural inequality shape health, healthcare, and medical training.
I am Co-Director of Education at the Center for Health Justice and Bioethics and Assistant Professor at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, with an affiliate appointment in the Department of Sociology. I am also a Macy Faculty Scholar, a national program supporting early-career faculty with strong promise as future leaders in health professions education.
My research sits at the intersection of immigration, health, incarceration, and medical education, with particular attention to how law, policy, and institutional structures shape clinical care and health outcomes. My work has appeared in Social Science & Medicine, Social Forces, The American Journal of Bioethics, The Journal of the American Dental Association, The British Medical Journal, Medical Education, and City & Community.
Broadly, my scholarship asks what happens to health and healthcare when legal status becomes a master status. I examine how immigration policy and the absence of meaningful federal reform since 1986 shape the lives—and the health—of more than ten million undocumented people in the United States, and how citizenship itself operates as a social determinant of health. Across this work, I seek to advance more ethical and inclusive healthcare systems and research practices, particularly for populations navigating legal precarity.
Before joining Temple, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Health Disparities Research Scholars Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA. I earned my PhD in Sociology from the University of Chicago and was also a Public Policy Lab Fellow at Temple University, where I examined how state and local policy environments shape immigrant health.
Teaching in a medical school is both a privilege and a great joy. I am committed to thoughtful, reflexive pedagogy that prepares future health professionals to engage seriously with the social determinants of health, doctor–patient communication, health equity, immigration, and access to care. In Spring 2024, I received the Lewis Katz School of Medicine Educational Excellence Award in Graduate and Non-MD Professional Program Teaching, recognizing my commitment to teaching and mentorship.