About

I am broadly trained as a cultural anthropologist with a specialization in psychological and medical anthropology.

I primarily focus on individual experiences of mental and emotional health in relation to migration/mobility. While I give primacy to the singularity of each narrative, I also maintain engagements with long-established anthropological attunements to local and global prescripts of illness, gender, family and community, global politics, human rights, and domestic labor exchange.

I completed my Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles. My dissertation research took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and examined why young Ethiopian women migrate to the Gulf countries for domestic work and how they understand and experience their subsequent emotional and mental health.

I also hold M.S. in Medical Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Practices from Boston University. It was my research in Boston that encouraged me to continue engaging with anthropological conversations regarding suicidality and mental distress, particularly within minority communities.

Since 2022 I have served as a Lecture for UCLA (Department of Anthropology and International Institute), and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Macalester College for the 2022-2023 academic year.

I am currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for Health and the Social Sciences and Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago.