Research Overview

Entrepreneurship · Emerging Technology · Re-skilling · Innovation · Worker Mobility · Development

My research is grounded in a phenomenological commitment to understanding how people experience and make sense of institutions and inequality in their everyday lives. I study how people navigate structural constraints in pursuit of meaningful work, high-growth ventures, and learning opportunities. As a methods-agnostic researcher, I’m excited to follow real-world problems—whether that means interviewing founders in emerging markets, analyzing digital diaries to understand career transitions in the age of AI, or tracing the symbolic and labor market value of alternative credentials through ethnography. My goal is to shed insight that is both theoretically generative and grounded in lived realities while also speaking to policy, design, and practice in the evolving world of work.

Selected Publications

The Miseducation of a Labor Market: When Labor Market Intermediaries Create Expectation Gaps

Co-authored, (2023), Proceedings of the Academy of Management. Finalist Best Paper Award, CAREER Division.

Abstract: Prior studies examining the impact of labor market intermediaries (LMIs) on labor market outcomes focus on the LMI’s services or the characteristics of employers or aspirants. In this paper, we draw on an 18-month ethnographic study of an LMI to focus instead on the “expectation gap” that LMIs can inadvertently create through their interactions with aspirants and employers, especially as they work to legitimate and develop a market for a newly upskilled workforce. We explore what happened as this LMI worked to establish legitimacy with both sides of the market. We found that they structured widely different expectations about the value each side would get from a market match - in this case, internships that converted to full-time jobs. Employers expected to hire skilled workers while offering low quality jobs, while aspirants came to value furthering their education hoping for higher quality jobs. The LMI got engagement from both sides, but this expectation gap meant few internships converted to employment. Nearly half of aspirants remained unemployed, despite many open jobs. LMIs can be promising vehicles for social mobility, but may need to address divergent market expectations, especially as they work to legitimize their approach and the market they help structure.

The confidence gap predicts the gender pay gap among STEM graduates.

Co-authored, (2020), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Abstract: Women make less than men in some science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. While explanations for this gender pay gap vary, they have tended to focus on differences that arise for women and men after they have worked for a period of time. In this study we argue that the gender pay gap begins when women and men with earned degrees enter the workforce. Further, we contend the gender pay gap may arise due to cultural beliefs about the appropriateness of women and men for STEM professions that shape individuals’ self-beliefs in the form of self-efficacy. Using a three-wave NSF-funded longitudinal survey of 559 engineering and computer science students that graduated from over two dozen institutions in the United States between 2015 and 2017, we find women earn less than men, net of human capital factors like engineering degree and grade point average, and that the influence of gender on starting salaries is associated with self-efficacy. We find no support for a competing hypothesis that the importance placed on pay explains the pay gap; there is no gender difference in reported importance placed on pay. We also find no support for the idea that women earn less because they place more importance on workplace culture; women do value workplace culture more, but those who hold such values earn more rather than less. Overall, the results suggest that addressing cultural beliefs as manifested in self-beliefs—that is, the confidence gap—commands attention to reduce the gender pay gap.

Enabling a Skilled and Diverse Engineering Workforce with Non-Degree Credentials

Co-authored, (2023), International Handbook of Engineering Education Research

Abstract: A growing number of non-degree credentials are also being used to supplement the training and education of individuals who already hold a four-year degree (Columbus, 2019). The number of non-degree credentials awarded in engineering is likely to expand since National Science Board numbers do not account for the additional certificates, certifications, badges, and licenses issued annually by professional societies, certification bodies, state licensure boards, and companies. In the engineering workforce, non-degree credentials play distinct roles by providing value that can be distinguished from an engineering degree.

Manufacturing Vulnerability: How Resource Scarcity Hinders Team Coordination in Manufacturing-Led Development in Nigerian Factories

Co-authored, (2019), American Society of Mechanical Engineers IDETC-CIE Annual Conference, DTM Division

Abstract: The purpose of this research is to learn how less-skilled workers (LSWs) and highly-skilled workers (HSWs) coordinate in Nigerian factories, where the formal education gap between these two groups can be quite significant. The study takes place in two factories and two universities across four Nigerian states over the summer of 2018. Drawing on methods of ethnography (i.e. a collection of qualitative methods to closely observe social interactions and practices as to interpret and build theory), it was discovered that resource scarcity hinders team coordination through the occurrence of four obstacles: (1) unclear role boundaries and work processes, (2) poor attitude towards work, (3) under- and over-utilization of employees, and (4) worker demoralization and feelings of being undervalued. This paper builds upon previous work on factory coordination in cross-occupational functional groups in Silicon Valley.

Effects of Research and Internship Experiences on Engineering Task and Innovation Self-Efficacy on Engineering Students Through an Intersectional Lens

Co-authored, (2018), American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition, Winner Best Diversity Paper Award

Abstract: High-impact academic experiences, particularly research and internship experiences, have positive impacts for engineering students on engineering task self-efficacy (ETSE), a measure of students’ perception of their ability to perform technical engineering tasks. However, underrepresented racial/ethnic minority students (URM) and women in engineering are found to have relatively lower self-perceptions across several academic and professional self-efficacy measures. Previous studies examined the impact of research and internship experiences on ETSE for students categorized by gender and URM status separately. The current study explores the impact of these experiences on ETSE for the intersection between these two identity categories.

Under Review

The Hustle Game: Performing Hope and Bearing Blame in a Job Market That Doesn’t Deliver.

Co-authored

Administrative Science Quarterly. Revise and resubmit.

From System-Blame to System Praise: Black Working-Class Jobseekers and the Precarious Economy.

Co-authored

American Journal of Sociology. Under review.

Working Papers

Re-skilling for the Future of Work: Utilizing Digital Diaries and LLMs for Novel Inductive Theorizing

Co-authored

Academy of Management Journal (in preparation)

Feeling Suffocated, but Being Celebrated: How Local Entrepreneurs Navigate Firm Growth in Unsupportive Institutional Environments.

Co-authored

Organization Science (in preparation)

Exploring Hybridized and Separate Engineering-Artist Professional Identities

Single-authored

Academy of Management Journal (in preparation)

Reclaiming Our Names: A Poetic Analysis Connecting Identity & Exploration Among Second-Generation Nigerian Youth

Co-authored

Journal of Poetry Therapy (in preparation)