I am a sociologist studying social policy, gender, and health. Broadly, my work focuses on how categories of risk are constructed and institutionalized in American welfare and health governance.  My current book project examines how state and professional organizations shape gendered, racial, and socioeconomic inequalities in American maternal and child welfare. In related lines of research, I study the rise in US maternal morbidity rates, racial inequity in medical reporting of substance-exposed infants, and risk discourses in maternal health and child welfare. I have also published on the politics of educational policy advocacy, communal and organizational change, and mixed methods research, and I have a forthcoming book chapter on how American child welfare evolved into a form of poverty governance. My work has been recognized by the ASA Political Sociology section and supported by multiple fellowships and research grants, and I have published in the American Journal of Sociology, Qualitative Sociology, and Sociological Methods and Research.