About

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Education Policy and Leadership at the Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development. At SMU I am engaged in a variety of research projects all centered on on understanding the behaviors of colleges and universities and, in particular, how they engage with and respond to their environments. In my research I seek to leverage novel data and methodological approaches, in combination with organizational theories, to answer novel questions that are fundamental to understanding how higher education organizations (HEOs) function within our society. In so doing I am able to illuminate how these organizations react, often in different ways, to their external environments and also how they in turn shape their environments through these reactions and their other practices.

I was awarded my Ph.D. and Master of Arts degrees in Sociology from the University of Arizona where my research was funded by the Association for Institutional Research and a University of Arizona Excellence Graduate Fellowship in the Social Sciences. I earned my Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology and Economics at Baylor University.

Prior to joining the faculty at SMU I was a Postdoctoral Research and Teaching Associate at the University of Georgia’s Institute of Higher Education where I was the Project Manager for a multiyear NSF funded project focused on understanding how trustees create connections between elite universities, their environments, and external organizations.