I worked as a science journalist for over a decade, covering health and science stories for outlets including Science, Nature, the Washington Post, Wired, and Mother Jones. A documentary I produced for CNN on how problematic forensic science methods contributed to wrongful convictions won the 2006 Livingston Award. 

In my reporting, scientific controversies often involved questions about how data was analyzed, and I spent a lot of time calling experts to better understand the issues. Eventually, I decided I wanted to understand data analysis better myself, and I went back to school for an MPH. That turned out to be a gateway drug: once I realized how much more I wanted to learn, I stayed for a PhD.

In my first position after graduate school, at Carnegie Mellon University, I fell in love with teaching.  At the University of Washington, I've been able to bring my interests full circle and return to public health. I'm honored to have the opportunity to teach and work with students who are the future of the field.  

As an instructor, I support statisticians in advancing their technical skills and improving their ability to communicate statistical work to non-statisticians, and I support students and professionals in public health in developing the ability to think critically about statistical methods. My research interests include disparities in health outcomes and health care access, as well as statistical issues related to criminal justice. Recent projects include:

• Faculty lead, the COVID-19 Trends & Impact Survey, which collected an average of 15,000 responses per day from April 2020-June 2022 and won the Policy Impact Award and the Warren J Mitofsky Innovators Award from the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

• Co-director, Center for Statistics and Applications in Forensic Evidence, a multi-university NIST Center of Excellence.

  • Label the Limits of Forensic Science (Nature, April 2017)

  • What does a match mean? A framework for understanding forensic comparisons (Royal Statistical Society, April 2019)

• Working Where Statistics and Human Rights Meet (For a special issue of ASA Chance I guest-edited)