PRINCIPAL TOPICS OF INTEREST
- Migration (transnational/translocal linkages, economic and social remittances, refugee resettlement)
- Health (nutrition transitions, food security, traditional healing)
- Economy (livelihoods, decision-making, vulnerability, inequality)
PROJECTS
Since 2022, I have been conducting research on the nutrition transition in northeastern Madagascar. In the fall of 2022 I spent 5 months conducting interviews with residents of Maroantsetra, a large market town, and surrounding villages in the region. My main focus has been to explore the social and cultural factors that are leading to changes in traditional diets and the increasing consumption of highly processed foods. This research was supported by the US Fulbright Scholar Africa Regional Research Program.
Since 2015, I have been exploring the refugee resettlement process in New Hampshire where I now live and teach, with an eye towards developing research and service-learning projects that will involve my students at Plymouth State University.
From 2014-2015, I was a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Georgia’s College of Public Health. I worked as part of a team to evaluate state and federal public health programs using qualitative and mixed methods.
From 2010-2012, I conducted my doctoral dissertation research on rural to urban migration in northeastern Madagascar, focusing on the growing city of Tamatave (aka Toamasina) and rural villages in the Vavatenina District. I explored the rural linkages that migrants maintain with kin in their villages of origin, asking two main questions: First, how do contemporary factors such as entrenched urban poverty and the rising popularity of Pentecostal Christian faith groups affect the ties that migrants maintain with their home villages? Second, how essential are rural ties for the economic survival of migrants in a developing city such as Tamatave that is characterized by high unemployment and lack of basic social support services? This research was supported by the National Science Foundation’s Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (DDIG) and Graduate Research Fellowship (GRFP).
Prior to graduate school, I was very lucky to have lots of other research experiences in Madagascar as an undergraduate student at UVM, a study abroad student at the School for International Training, and a post-baccalaureate US Fulbright student.