Research & Programming

Creating Creative Health in Dementia Caregivers

Supported No Barriers USA as a programming consultant, designing and facilitating creative health programming for caregiver retreats in Colorado. Developed original exercises on caregiver identity and resilience, collaborated with program leads, facilitated across three retreats, and contributed an exercise adopted for ongoing organizational use.

Women’s Empowerment in Bangladesh

To support the development of women’s empowerment programs in Bangladesh, conducted landscape research on 40+ nonprofit initiatives across the Global South, alongside reports, articles, and documentary media on the status of women in Bangladesh. Synthesized findings into a proposed five-branch empowerment program model that included an entertainment-based outreach component.

Public Campaigns in the Global South

To discover best practices of effective public awareness campaigns in developing countries, reviewed, assessed, and catalogued 30 campaigns on topics such as health, environment, and finance.

Entrepreneur Training Programs in Developing Countries

To find proven practices and innovative programming to best engage, impact, and support entrepreneurs in Bangladesh, reviewed over 50 programs and organizations supporting entrepreneurs in both developed and developing countries.

Global Youth Engagement Programs

To find best practices in youth engagement, reviewed over 75 programs from libraries, schools, and communities centers as well as programs lead by NGOs and nonprofits in both first world and developing nations.

Creativity Journal for Women

For this women’s creativity journal, designed monthly themes with weekly writing exercises connected to each theme. Researched and catalogued 365 inspirational quotes that matched daily writing exercises.

Co-Working Spaces

To better understand the relationship between Santa Monica’s entertainment industry and co-working spaces in the area, reviewed 40+ articles and reports, reviewed websites of 20 local co-working spaces, visited 8 of these locations, and reviewed 20 local production company office locations.

Selected Graduate Research - NYU (2025)

The Daughter’s Department of Dementia Care

An autoethnographic online exhibit examining unpaid family dementia caregiving via bioethics, gender, feminist economics, and creative practice. Learn more about this project under Public Engagement & Storytelling or visit the exhibit at www.thedaughtersdepartmentofdementiacare.com.

Representing the Black Male Family Dementia Caregiver: 

An Analysis of the Film American Fiction Through a Dementia Caregiver Lens

This paper explores how cultural representation can shape caregiving identity among Black men through an analysis of the Oscar-winning film American Fiction. While the film, and the novel on which it is based, is widely discussed as a scathing commentary on race, exploitation, and commodification, its portrayal of a Black male protagonist who becomes the primary caregiver for his mother with dementia has received little attention. I argue that this representation offers a powerful and underutilized resource for reimagining the Black male family dementia caregiving experience.

Interrogating Arrangements of Unpaid Dementia Care in the United States

Developed a 7-week syllabus to better understand the history, arrangement, and mechanisms of unpaid family dementia caregiver. Particular attention was paid to the care economy, the care crisis, caregiver identity, gender and the family, and existing potential solutions.

The Fulcrum of Dignity: A New Perspective of Unpaid Family Dementia Caregivers

First, I offer a conceptualization of unpaid family dementia caregivers that position them at the center of this caregiving. Second, I position these caregivers as the fulcrum of dignity, where through them, dignity either flows toward or away from their loved one with dementia. In the end, I call for interventions that go beyond making the caregiver better at caregiving and include actual, material, embodied support.

Selected Graduate Research - University of Amsterdam (2018)

The Multiplicitous Movie Heroine: A Rhizomatic Analysis of Representations of

Women in Present-Day Hollywood Blockbuster Films

For this thesis, designed and applied a rhizomatic feminist film analysis framework to examine representations of female protagonists in Rogue One and Wonder Woman.

Doing “Woman” Right:  Body Shame and Heteronormative Feminine Gender Performativity

Using auto-ethnography, explored body shame as “correct” heteronormative female behavior.

Body, Sex, Home, Woman:  Feeling “At home” 

in the Female Body

Using participatory action research, this proposal sought to explore how women define their relationship to their body and how the language used impacts their lives.

“When I’m Really Judging Myself…”:

Shame, The Female Body, and Identity

When women experience body shame, do they identify it as themselves, or something other from themselves?