DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

Area(s) of Interest

Organizations, Occupations, and Work, Sexualities, Culture, Sex and Gender, Economic Sociology

Biography

I teach and do research at the intersection of work and organizations, culture and cultural production, health and medicine, gender and sexuality, and economic sociology. As an Assistant Professor of Instruction at Northwestern University, I teach Northwestern undergraduates on both the Evanston campus and through the Northwestern Prison Education Program. I also advise undergraduates on their own independent research projects, and I am a huge proponent of supporting student-driven research that culminates in a thesis or publication. In addition to my undergraduate courses, I teach the Northwestern Sociology Department graduate pedagogy seminar.

My previous research studied the Los Angeles pornography industry, and how cultural values (like cultural stigma surrounding sex work) can shape organizational decision making or performer career trajectories (like condom use / HIV testing in adult film production or performers’ decisions to escort). More recently, I am interested in the study of autism, and how the sociological field of symbolic interactionism has the theoretical breadth and methodological depth to speak to the embodied experience of people living with autism.

Courses Taught

SOCIOL 110: Introduction to Sociology
SOCIOL 276: Sociology of Reputation
SOCIOL 302: Sociology of Organizations
SOCIOL 570: Seminar on College Teaching