I am a Sociologist with interests in family, gender, and work. I received my Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University in 2024.  

My research is broadly focused on the mechanisms shaping individuals’ family and employment pathways and on how these pathways play into broader demographic and social patterns. Much of this work sits at the intersection of family sociology, feminist and gender scholarship, cultural sociology, and population studies. I have a deep interest in advancing and advocating for the use of qualitative and cross-national, comparative methods to understand social life.

My dissertation, Women Without Children: Cultural Perspectives on A Demographic Phenomenon, uses in-depth interviews I conducted with over 150 women in the United States (in English) and Japan (in Japanese) to investigate the phenomenon of being permanently childless in today’s world. Across three empirical chapters, I ask how women’s childlessness is complicated by the cultural durability of motherhood; how childlessness can be conceptualized and modeled as a life course process; and how broader national and cultural context shape the lived experience of never having children. An article from one of the chapters, called “Motherhood Myths and Mystiques” has recently been published online in the Journal of Marriage and Family.

My other research has also focused on how individuals’ choices about their family life or their careers are enabled and constrained in various contexts. In one study, recently published in the journal Population and Development Review, I examine how the COVID-19 pandemic mattered for currently childless women who were nearing the ends of their potential reproductive timelines when the pandemic struck. In another study, published in Sociological Forum, I examine how university and graduate program settings can impact the career pathways that aspiring professional women see as possible for themselves.

Before coming to Harvard, I taught English in Tokyo as part of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program. I received my Bachelor’s Degree from Middlebury College in 2015, where I majored in International and Global Studies with a focus on East Asia. I grew up mostly in Austin, Texas and enjoy cooking and baking, reading contemporary fiction in English and Japanese, and exploring local coffee shops.