As a feminist and organizational sociologist, my research focuses on gender, work-family, and organizations. Currently, I am working on two projects. One is a collaborative project to examine how work, family and social well-being among heterosexual, dual-income couples have changed within the context of COVID-19 (NSF grant is #2031726). This is a longitudinal, mixed methods study using surveys and in-depth interviews with both members of a couple. The other one is a study on professional and managerial employees in the automotive industry focused on flexible work arrangements, career advancement, and work-family conflict of both women and men.

I knew I always wanted two things – to live outside the U.S. and to get a PhD. My journey was not straight-forward. As an undergrad, I focused on international politics and languages, thinking international law was my destiny. After six years working in law, I moved on to international public health, inspired by a series of travels in West Africa. After turning down my Peace Corp assignment, I continued studying public health until I took a class on Latin America and one on gender. Halfway through my first year in the doctoral program, I switched to sociology and never looked back. I moved to Mexico for my dissertation research on social movement organizations, and later landed an amazing opportunity to study a multinational corporation’s (gendered) transition a decade post-NAFTA. After 7 years in Mexico, I came to WSU. I’ve continued focusing on gender, work-family, and organizations, although focused in the U.S. .

I am excited to be working with an amazing team of colleagues and graduate students at WSU on a project, which has challenged me to think about work, gender, and family in new ways. Our Couples Study, we hope, will contribute in a unique way to scholarship by drawing on dyadic analyses rather than just individual, the most common level of analysis in the sociology of work.

There are so many! I can’t choose just one, so I’ll focus on a group of books/authors I read that pivotal semester I switched to Sociology: The Second Shift, Feeding the Family, Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, Rituals of Marginality, and Life is Hard; feminist scholarship by Sonya Alvarez, Judith Lorber, Sylvia Walby, Patricia Hill Collins, Joan Acker, Verta Taylor, and Nancy Whittier; I could go on!

My favorite role models are the many smart, funny, and supportive women that have been or are in my life. From my mom, who was the stay-at-home mom with three kids under five (no idea how she did it) and got her college degree and then a master’s, to my mother-in-law who was an amazing, fierce woman, to my dissertation chair, April Brayfield, who not only was an amazing mentor, but a dear friend, who I miss, to my incredible group of feminist travel friends (you all know who you are!).

I love to read fiction…anything that transports me somewhere. My most recent pastime is watching movies with my teen son while he still thinks it is okay to hang with mom. We watched all 21 Marvel movies (many of them twice) during the lockdown. I like a friendly competitive game with friends over great food and wine. I LOVE to travel – the beach, the mountains, the cities, and just exploring new places.