About Me

I am an Assistant Professor at Cottey College. I have a PhD and a Master's in political science from CU Boulder and a Bachelor’s degree in political science and journalism from Creighton University. I am grateful to have received many grants and awards during my time at CU, including the 2026 Graduate Part-Time Instructor Recognition Award, the 2023 Kenneth Sherrill Prize, the 2023 CU Boulder Summer Fellowship, two 2022 research grants from the Institute of Behavioral Science and the Political Science Department, respectively, and the 2021 Beverly Sears Graduate Student Grant.

My research focuses on transgender rights, hetero-cisnormativity, and, more broadly, quantitative queer politics. More specifically, I am interested in how de jure policies unrelated to gender, sex, and sexuality enforce our understanding of each concept. Currently, I am working on projects related to conversion therapy bans in the US, global gender marker policies, and hetero-cisnormativity in US court cases. My proposed research agenda also includes research on transgender sex work, initially at the US level with hopes to expand to the global level.