Visualizing Transformation showcases the visual and organizational approaches I use as a researcher, educator, and author to communicate key messages about the ongoing transformation of higher education to various audiences. Rooted in my own first-gen, working-class heritage, my work aims to bring attention to the structural nature of these international policy challenges and help institutions around the globe better educate marginalized students.

I am an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University in the School of Education as well as a Research Fellow with the Center for Skills, Knowledge and Organizational Performance (SKOPE) at the University of Oxford. My research is positioned at the intersection of public policy and organizational theory and examines how economic policies have incentivized colleges and universities with limited resources to pursue margins in new markets at the expense of their educational missions.

The direct social impact of my work ranges from the development of new measures to assess student mental health to disentangling the complexity of accountability policies to raising awareness of racial inequalities across learning platforms. My work has been supported by competitive grants from the National Science Foundation, British Academy, Buckner W. Clay Endowment, and ACUHO-I and has been published in a variety of academic outlets, including Scientometrics, American Journal of Education, Journal of American College Health, and Journal of College Student Development. 

I am dedicated to equipping educational leaders with tools to improve society in my role as an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Johns Hopkins University. In my graduate courses I offer personalized learning opportunities with a Socratic teaching style and small-group collaborations to foster supportive learning environments. My approach centers diversity, equity, and inclusion through innovative teaching approaches (such as my YouTube Letters & End-of-term Epilogues) to encourage student learning and persistence. Whether online or in-person, my classroom has a unique language of its own where “everyone talks every day” and participants discover the career-altering principles of “Harvarding,” “poker nights,” and “second circle exchanges.”

I believe the dominant narratives of societies change when they encounter new and compelling alternatives. My current book project, Capitalizing on College, pulls back the curtain on student enrollment and institutional survival in higher education. Rooted in the candid accounts of over 150 college and university leaders, it tells the story of how neoliberal policies incentivize institutions to financially sustain themselves by pursuing new growth strategies that view “students as resources.” From the perspectives of the leaders themselves, the book chronicles the challenges they face in protecting missions of access and affordability in the highly competitive market environment of higher education.