My expertise is in immigration, with related specialties in race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, social policy, work, and law and society. Using qualitative methods, I analyze how immigrants are incorporated into U.S. society and, in this process, experience social transformations. I organize my research into two streams addressing interrelated questions: (1) What is the transformative potential of legal status? (2) How do state and legal institutions make (non)citizens? My research has been supported by fifteen fellowships and grants from organizations such as the National Science Foundation and the American Sociological Association. I am also an award-winning mentor and instructor committed to inclusion, building students’ consciousness about the larger world and their place in it, and empowering them as agents of change.

2025 ASA Awards:
- Winner ASA Section on Children and Youth’s Graduate Student Paper Award
- Winner ASA Labor & Labor Movement Section Distinguished Student Paper Award
- Honorable Mention ASA Organizations, Occupations, and Work Section Thompson Graduate Student Paper Award