About
I am an applied anthropologist and GIS technician, focusing on the intersection of cultural anthropology and geography. I am particularly interested in issues related to human displacement and forced migration, disaster recovery and recovery cultures, and race and racism, with a geographic focus on the U.S. Gulf South and Latin America. My dissertation research focused on the post-Hurricane Katrina Latinx community in the Greater New Orleans area. Specifically, I examined how this community navigates and re/defines recognition, citizenship, and belonging while actively resisting discrimination in the city.
Other projects I work on include: collaborative research as a staff ethnographer with Evans + Lighter Landscape Architecture to support the Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Tribe of coastal Louisiana with their tribal-driven resettlement plan; “On Race, Racism, and Whiteness in Tallahassee,” a community-based participatory research project with the Health Equity Alliance of Tallahassee and the University of Florida that examines racism and its impacts on health outcomes of Black residents of Tallahassee, Florida; and “Building Flood Resilience in Santa Rosa County,” a collaborative GIS research and model-building project funded by NOAA Coastal Resilience grant through the MESC/Dauphin Island Sea Lab and the Santa Rosa County Board of County Commissioners that examines coastal community resilience to future flooding.
I have also taught courses as contingent faculty at Dillard University and University of New Orleans. I currently reside in New Orleans, Louisiana, where my research is based.
View of downtown New Orleans and Crescent City Connection bridge over Mississippi River as taken from Crescent Park, Bywater neighborhood, New Orleans.