I study stratification in education and in the labor market. Some of my current work looks at the potential of school choice policies to attenuate or exacerbate patterns of inequality and segregation in urban public education systems. I am also interested in students' nontraditional pathways to and through postsecondary education, including a focus on older adults who return to school. Additional projects examine the implications of workplace institutions and practices -- including unions and policies barring workers from discussing their earnings with their colleagues -- for workers' wages.
I am an assistant professor and the Graduate Chair in the Department of Sociology at the University of Western Ontario (in Canada), and an external affiliate at the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology at the University of Washington. I earned my PhD in sociology from the University of Washington, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis.