My research agenda strives to elucidate how human population dynamics and behavior intersect with environmental conditions to affect health. My dissertation research documented human birth seasonality in sub-Saharan Africa, identifying the social and ecological drivers of birth seasonality and analyzing the impact of birth seasonality on infectious disease dynamics and optimal timing of pulse vaccination campaigns. My current research focuses on the effects of early life exposures (i.e., disease/nutrition/climate) on health. I have also conducted research on spatial demography/urbanization with a focus on implications for health and climate change vulnerability. My research has appeared in Population Development Review, Population Health Metrics, and PLoS ONE.
Prior to joining the Humphrey School faculty I was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at the University of Michigan’s Population Studies Center and Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health. I earned my PhD in Public Policy from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs with a concentration in demography from the Office of Population Research.