I am a genetic anthropologist in the Department of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University and have been a member of this department since 2016. Prior to arriving at Vanderbilt, I was an Assistant Professor  in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame for seven years.

I completed my undergraduate studies with a BA in Pre-professional Studies/Anthropology and Computer Applications in 1999 at the University of Notre Dame. I then earned a MS degree in 2002 followed by a doctorate in anthropology in 2006 from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.  After graduate school, I was a post-doctoral fellow for two years in the Department of Medicine, Section of Genetic Medicine at the University of Chicago. Under the tutelage of Dr. Rick Kittles, I worked on various research projects involving molecular epidemiology of prostate and colorectal cancers.

Currently, my primary research area is the Anglophone Caribbean where I explore genetic ancestry and population history of African and Indigenous Caribbean peoples. As part of this research, I have been involved with National Geographic’s Genographic Project.  I’ve published studies that consider numerous Caribbean communities, including the Garifuna of St. Vincent, the First People’s Community of Arima in Trinidad, and the Accompong Town Maroons of Jamaica. More recently, I’ve expanded this research to consider the ancestry of African descendants in Puerto Rico. 

A second emerging area of my research combines the tools and theories of genetic epidemiology with anthropology in  to holistically examine health disparities across human populations.  This work focuses on women’s health, with a specific focus on the prevalence of uterine fibroids among African descendant women. In this work, I consider how the intersectional aspects of a person’s identity impacts how they understand and experience uterine fibroids. The overall goal of line of research is to unpack the how and in what ways race, specifically ‘Black race’ is a risk factor for uterine fibroids.