Research Interests

Broadly speaking, I’m interested in how demographic, inequality, and biological processes combine to influence health and well-being. Much of my research combines genetic information with measures of the social environment to interactively predict health and health behaviors. Another, emerging area of my research addresses the determinants and consequences of extended kinship networks for health and educational attainment. I combine these interests in biology, inequality, and kinship in my research on the causes of racial/ethnic disparities in kidney transplantation.

Current Research Projects

My main focus right now is studying the causes of racial/ethnic disparities in living donor kidney transplantation. I am seeking to collect data on the kinship and social networks of kidney transplant patients to determine which transplant candidates have access to biomedically suitable living kidney donors, and what the social factors mediate between medical suitability and completed transplantation. I am also examining other kinship-level processes, such as how educational advantage is transmitted across generations, how strongly mortality risk runs in extended families, how kin support their elderly relatives, and how relatives’ death influence child educational attainment outcomes.