Assistant Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences

Overview

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences at Brown University’s School of Public Health. I received my PhD in Developmental Science from Boston University in 2016 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Brown’s Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies in 2019.

My research program bridges developmental science and addiction science, with a focus on the parent-child dyad during two sensitive developmental periods: the perinatal stage and adolescence. I study how parental substance use and mental health influence parenting, parent-child relationship quality, and children’s socioemotional and behavioral development. My work also investigates the intergenerational transmission of risk across families and identifies protective processes that can be leveraged to support healthier developmental trajectories.

A central area of my research is understanding and addressing perinatal substance use. I lead studies examining the etiology and treatment of prenatal cannabis, tobacco, and polysubstance use, as well as the long-term developmental implications for children.

Brown Affiliations

Research Areas