I am a PhD student in Sociology, a Nell P. Eurich and Maurice Lazarus Fellow, and a Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow at Columbia University. Broadly interested in labor, borders defined broadly, and the intersectionality of inequality, I think a lot about how workers’ experiences are structured in and through time and space. My dissertation focuses on how contingent workers navigate unstable schedules and uncertain earnings in NYC and Texas, drawing on over 100 interviews with agricultural, oil & gas, academic and platform workers along with other data.
I hold a B.A. in English and Latin American Studies from New York University and an M.A. in Latin American Studies and International Migration from UC San Diego, where I conducted research in the U.S. and Mexico and co-authored a publication with the Mexican Migration Field Research Program. For my M.A. thesis I conducted ethnographic research on immigration enforcement and detention in North Carolina and southern California, including 32 qualitative interviews and work with nonprofits in both regions, and published some of my findings in the academic journal Norteamérica.
I lived and worked in Madrid, Spain as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant from 2011-2012. Prior to coming to Columbia, I worked as a paralegal and outreach advocate for a legal aid organization in the Rio Grande Valley border region of Texas. My research interests on labor, immigration, precarious work, and geographies of inequality are deeply informed by the people I met and worked with in south Texas.