About Me

As an art and writing student in undergrad, I started out my academic career with the intention of telling people’s stories. With aspirations to become a photojournalist, I wanted to learn about the lives of people, about their struggles and triumphs, and to expose people to a life entirely different than their own by conveying those stories. The more I learned and grew, however, I began to realize that people’s stories aren’t entirely their own. The details may be unique, but the kinds of challenges and barriers people face, the benefits and support they receive, and their ability to change their positions in society are largely shaped by forces entirely outside of their control. This reality hit home after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City. The seeds of that event were planted and cultivated decades before and thousands of miles away, but there I was, experiencing the repercussions of decisions made by others, hated – in a very general sense – for my membership in a specific group. Even more troubling for me were the experiences of the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq – men and women who had no say or ability to stop the wars ravaging their countries and communities. Men, women, and children who were killed in unknown numbers for reasons entirely outside of themselves. How could I tell those individual stories without understanding the larger story first?

 

After graduation, I went back to school for two years of post-baccalaureate study in political science, international studies, and women’s studies. I studied Eastern European history and politics, I learned Russian, I took classes in game theory and international feminisms, and I interned for a labor union. I soaked up all that I could about the structures that shape people’s lives, and then I returned home. Rural Oregon. A place that I dreamed of leaving, but missed more and more whenever I was gone. I took what I knew personally about the challenges facing rural communities and the forces that shape people’s lives, and applied it to my work at a domestic violence shelter serving a large rural population. As the legal advocate at this shelter, I had the opportunity to personally see how yet more forces impacted people’s lives on a regular basis – policy and place. As incredibly rewarding as this work was, it was not work I could do long term, and I returned to school to study rural policy. I wanted to know how rural places, which all too often lack resources to implement policy that is created without their situations in mind and without the political power to truly impact the policy process itself, deal with state and federal policy mandates, and how their voices can be better incorporated into policy decision making.

 

It was at Oregon State University, during my Masters of Public Policy program, that I took my second sociology class ever: social inequality. It was in this class that the pieces that I had been putting together on my own for the past decade finally snapped into place. These “larger forces” that I had been chasing and endeavoring to understand were social structures, and it is from these structures that inequality and stratification are created, justified, and entrenched on both a local and global scale. It was also in this class that I truly began to realize how unusual my own situation was. Coming from a background of fairly significant poverty, I had the good fortune of a strong support system who not only encouraged and believed in me, but who knew how to navigate the institutional barriers that block so many young people in my same socioeconomic situation. I had parents for whom college was not an option but a requirement for their kids, and who gave us what financial support they could through the first couple of years. I worked hard, but I certainly did not “pull myself up by my bootstraps;” I was pushed, and guided, and supported every step of the way.

 

Almost immediately I knew that I had a responsibility to continue my academic career, if for no other reason than I had been given that opportunity when it had been denied to so many others in the world. More than that, I also craved the chance to help and support other young people from the bottom of the social structure achieve their goals, just as I had been. Finally, this “discovery” of sociology opened up whole new avenues of inquiry that I was eager to explore. In the end, I find that I am still interested in telling people’s stories – of their challenges and triumphs – but those stories are more nuanced now; they are larger. Individual stories are told within their structural contexts, and they consider the larger barriers and benefits that shape them. They are stories that strive to educate, not just expose, and hopefully they are stories that can shift the way we all see our own circumstances and work towards better outcomes for everyone.

 

In an effort to create that ever-elusive work/life balance, I am also a distance runner, love to backpack and hike, and occasionally dust off the old camera to get back to my roots. I currently live in Oregon with my husband and three cats where I am working on my dissertation and several other academic projects. For a more formal, if somewhat dry, version of my academic path, please see my CV.