Personal
I was born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa, and feel privileged to have experienced the changes in my country first hand. The country I was raised in no longer exists in many ways, and I have vivid memories of apartheid, and of each stage of its crumbling, from Mandela’s release in 1990 to the buildup to the first democratic election in 1994. The snaking lines of people waiting from morning to night for the chance to vote, and the camaraderie of people who came out of their house with refreshments for those who were waiting, was an enduring lesson on the power of democracy, access, and civic engagement to profoundly change a nation at every level.
My family moved to San Francisco, where I finished high school before moving to Los Angeles to pursue an undergraduate degree at UCLA, where I majored in Mass Communication and Education. I was privileged to spend most of that time as a research assistant to Dr. Roger Waldinger, then Chair of the Sociology department, and one of the most influential immigration scholars of this generation. Under his tutelage, I became familiar with the large literature on immigration, and through participating in his projects, learned how to conduct both quantitative and qualitative research on immigration-related issues, largely related to employment and intergroup relations.
In 2002, I began my Ph.D. at the University of Southern California, where the lessons I learned at UCLA have been honed by the advisement of Dr. Sandra Ball-Rokeach and the Metamorphosis Project that has been my intellectual home for my five years of graduate school, and for two additional years as a postdoctoral research associate. My work with Dr. Ball-Rokeach and my colleagues has not only provided me with the methodological skills and theoretical orientation that have been the foundation of my research, but also, a number of co-authors and friends with whom I have been fortunate to collaborate.
The Metamorphosis Project also gave me the opportunity to pursue the kind of research I always wanted to do—work that would be academically valuable but also practically useful. How immigrant families integrate (or don’t) into their new communities, and the communicative processes inherent in these adaptations, are essential to understanding the future of education, health care, service provision, and civic engagement. My hope is to contribute to our understandings of these processes, their implications, and ways to improve access to community institutions for new arrivals.
My time at Rutgers University’s School of Communication and Information has given me the opportunity to test the generalizability of my findings about immigrant families to a new context. I have also begun developing a research program that focuses on young adults’ social media environments and their relationships to social disparities.
In my spare time, I try to travel as much as possible. When closer to home, I’m likely to be out for a run or a hike, trying out a new restaurant or a new recipe on friends or family, or reading an utterly un-academic book.
