About Me

I am an assistant professor in the Department of Public and Nonprofit Studies at Georgia Southern University. 

My research aims attention at governmental policy responses to public health crises and their associated policy debates, with a focus on the opioid crisis and COVID-19. Specifically, I examine how such policy responses impact public servants and what these policies and the attitudes and behaviors of street-level bureaucrats mean for the protection of historically marginalized groups during crises and disasters. Theoretically, my research contributes to literature in representative bureaucracy theory, the social construction of target populations theory, and the administrative burdens framework. My work has been published in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory; Public Administration Review; Public Administration; American Review of Public Administration; International Journal of Drug Policy; Journal of Rural Health; International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction; and Risks, Hazards, and Crises in Public Policy, among other venues. I have also been involved in securing over $4 million in external funding for opioid crisis-related policy-relevant research and services.