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Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University

• About

  Broadly, I investigate the causes and consequences of variation in family formation by utilizing my training in sociology, demography, statistics and biology. My research agenda concentrates on examining how the family, neighborhood, and local community influence family formation beliefs, values, and behavior. More recently, I have expanded my research by using genetic and epigenetic information to augment current models in family sociology and demography. In particular, I find that when genetic and epigenetic information is included in these models the family environment often has more lucid effects on behavioral outcomes and helps explain some of the heterogeneity in response to environmental influence. A third area of research deals with the survey methodological, demographic and statistical issues that arise in examination of family processes and genetic data collection in population based surveys.

• Education

  • Ph.D. University of Michigan, 2009
  • M.A. (Statistics) University of Michigan, 2007
  • M.S. Brigham Young University, 2003
  • B.S. Brigham Young University, 2001

• Research Areas of Interest

  • Family, Population, Social Biology, Social Psychology, Quantitative Methods, Religion

• Dissertation

  • Three Essays on Worldviews, Autonomy and the Family in Nepal (Arland Thornton (co-chair), William Axinn (chair), Yu Xie, and Miles Kimball (cognate, Economics))