A bit more about me
I first started working in public health as a disaster specialist responding to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. I arrived when teams were still extracting cars from trees and doing search and rescue operations in the 9th Ward. Watching the flawed response to Katrina helped me realize the importance of using evidence-based practice for humanitarian response, and how vital it is to bring forward the voices of those affected by humanitarian crisis. Wanting to get better skills to do both, I studied research methods in public health - first getting my master's degree from Harvard and then my PhD at Hopkins.
Since my first deployment to Hurricane Katrina, I've worked in crisis situations in the United States, Latin America and Africa. I served as the founding director of the Women and War Program at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. The program allowed me to work on projects that embody the principles of public health research I find most important: designing action-oriented projects aimed at creating change; using mixed-methods to gain a holistic understanding of complex phenomena; and elevating the voices of those most affected by crisis.
Recently, I've served as principle investigator for a number of projects with the World Bank and USAID and am a Fellow at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative where I continue to run research projects on human resilience and vulnerability in crisis contexts.
