I am an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Faculty Fellow in the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina. I received my M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Princeton University my B.A. in Psychology from Yale University. My areas of interest include religion, immigration, theory, culture and economic sociology.
My book Faith Makes Us Live: Surviving and Thriving in the Haitian Diaspora was published by University of California Press in 2009.
I am currently conducting research on religion and resilience among young adults. Using data from the National Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), I examine how religious beliefs and practices moderate environmental and social factors related to mental and physical health. A second line of my research builds on the virtue ethics perspective on human action to explore prayer and religious rituals as a space for the collectively enactment of virtues such a love, forgiveness, and humility.
I continue my work in migration through a project examining how tourism and labor migration are influencing development of towns on the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. This project is part of a broader initiative of UNC’s Center for Galapagos Studies.
For my full CV, click here.
