I’m a chaplain sociologist and

I study the heart and spirit of the hospital.

I am a hospital chaplain and postdoctoral research fellow at Children’s Hospital, Los Angeles in the Department of Spiritual Care.

My research explores how spiritual care and medical care are practiced together and shape the lives of people from underrepresented communities.

My current research explores how spiritual care interventions address drivers of health inequity in pediatric care. I’m interested in how hospital chaplains help shape the meanings and practices of end-of-life care in a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). I also focus on chronic, long-term illness and the inclusion of chaplain interventions for children and adolescents with diabetes.

My previous projects focused on end-of-life decision-making for people exiting chronic homelessness; how religious and spiritual practices have shaped the everyday lives of BIPOC women with heart disease; emotional resilience of frontline abortion care providers; multi-cultural community engagement in ethics of clinical research, and Womanist/Black feminist contributions to the principle of respect for autonomy in medical care.

I am a recent graduate of the Sociology Doctoral Program in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California San Francisco (June 2022). I am also ordained clergy (Unitarian Universalist) with two decades of experience as a religious professional and theological school professor.