I am currently a postdoctoral research associate in the Center for Research on Educational Opportunity (CREO) at the University of Notre Dame. I received my Ph.D. in Sociology from UCLA, supervised by Robert Mare. My research is focused on friends and the role they play in the stratification process of adolescents and has been published in Sociology of Education, Social Science Research, Research in Higher Education, Rationality and Society, and Sociological Science.

I am currently working on three research projects studying the contribution of friendship to educational inequality:

1.       With Megan Andrew, I am collecting new data to study the friendship dynamics and academic decision-making of youth as they transition from 6th to 7th grade and into new schooling environments. The Indianapolis Peers and School Transitions Study (IPAST Study) will focus on the saturated school peer networks of students in traditional public, charter, and private schools throughout Indianapolis. We will observe these networks before, during, and after school transitions, paying particular attention to the changes in the friendship networks of youth who transition across school types. 

2.       Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, I am studying the role that friendships—both their impact on future achievement and the friendship choices youth make—play in the maintenance of achievement gaps across socioeconomic status.

3.       With Diego Gambetta, I am investigating homophily and the stability of friendships among deviant and non-deviant youth.