I am Assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, College of Social Work. I am interested in critical gerontology, space & place, and health/mental health. My current research focuses on the affective geographies and healthcare trajectories of older adults experiencing houselessness. I provide mental health and social work services in the community and gear my practice toward older adults, caregivers, and people living with chronic illness, and queer/trans people. Much of my work as a social work practitioner has involved home and community based services for older and/or disabled people who cannot access traditional outpatient mental health and aging services. Throughout my professional worlds, I'm thinking about agency and autonomy, forces of institutionalization and acts of resistance to them, and the relationship between person and environment. I have taught clinical practice and research methods courses in the MSW program here at UW and am developing a pedagogy that integrates disability studies with social welfare and health services.
