Past Projects
Corporation for National Community Service
This multi-year project led by Dr. Pamela Paxton investigated the links between nonprofit community organizations and AmeriCorps programming within a community and that community's subjective well-being. Combining social media data, IRS tax documents, and nationally available community-level data sets, we have presented at national conferences, hosted webinars, and written several published articles. team members include: Kristopher Velasco, Inbar Weiss, Lilla Pivnick, and Marta Ascherio.
Projects with the Population Research Center
Through my affiliation with the Pop center at UT I worked on several small teams. With Dr. Robert Crosnoe I worked on projects that focused on minority and immigrant experiences within the early childhood education market, and education more generally. This work has produced several first-authored and co-authored manuscripts in journals like The Journal of Marriage and Family and Social Sciences Review. I also worked on qualitative analysis as part of a small team lead by Dr. Elma Lorenzo-Blanco investigating cultural stress among Hispanic high school students. We coded transcripts of focus groups conducted separately with students and parents to better understand how families cope with the stress caused by gaps in acculturation between students and parents, discrimination, and immigration issues.
Dissertation
In three chapters relying on longitudinal analysis of data on elementary school children, my dissertation evaluates the potential for nonprofit community organizations to strengthen the connections made between families and schools. I find that associations between community organizations and parental involvement behaviors tend to be more pronounced for Hispanic families, suggesting that they might benefit the most from investments in educational community organizations. In addition to Pam and Rob, this work has been supported by Drs. Chandra Muller, Jennifer Adair, and Aprille Benner.
Educational Experience
From my time working in nonprofit afterschool programming as a K-1st grade teacher, education is an important frame through which I conduct research. I therefore occasionally attended educational conferences such as the Administration for Children and Families’ National Research Conference on Early Childhood, the American Education Research Association, and American Evaluation Association conference.