I am interested in how politics and organizations (including education systems) shape processes of social inclusion and exclusion, both historically and in international comparison. My research has been published in several academic journals, including the DuBois Review, Law & Social Inquiry, and Race and Justice. My first book, Reparation and Reconciliation: The Rise and Fall of Integrated Higher Education (UNC Press), was reviewed by the American Journal of Sociology, the American Journal of History, and Contemporary Sociology, among others.

I have been a visiting scholar in the Dept. of Political Science at the University of Aarhus (Denmark) and The Mannheim Centre for European Social Research at the University of Mannheim (Germany), and regularly return to the University of Konstanz (Germany) to co-teach a service-learning course focused on refugee incorporation. I have previously held academic appointments at The Ohio State University (Sociology), Oberlin College (Sociology) and Washington University in St. Louis (Global Studies), where I also served as Assistant Dean at the Center for Diversity and Inclusion.

I graduated from Smith College with a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and earned a Masters in Education Policy and PhD in Sociology at Indiana University. My research has been funded by Spencer Foundation for Education Research, the Landesstiftung of Baden-Württemberg (Germany) and other sources.