She is a doctoral student in the Joint Program in Social Work and Sociology at the University of Michigan's School of Social Work. She has been involved in a variety of research projects, both during her doctoral career and prior to returning to graduate school. Her experiences have included both qualitative and quantitative research across a range of topics and involved planning and proposal writing, data collection, analysis, distribution of results including helping stakeholders think about translating results into practice, and conducting basic research in an agency setting. Her dissertation research looks at how gender, racial, ethnic, and age variations in social networks influence service usage for older adults with serious mental illness.