I am an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My research examines cultural beliefs about gender, romance, sexuality, and sexual violence in the United States. 

In one major stream of research, I consider how cultural beliefs about sexual harassment create challenges for people who have experienced it. For example, I have shown that people who report sexual harassment to their workplace are negatively stereotyped and may experience career penalties as a result. Moreover, I have found that a Black woman describing an experience of sexual harassment is viewed as less credible than an otherwise identical white woman, suggesting that the reputational costs associated with sexual harassment are unequally distributed by race. I have also demonstrated that trajectories of sexual harassment often start with ambiguous, subtle behaviors; because of this, people concerned about experiencing sexual harassment often begin to proactively guard against it - for example, by acting cold or avoidant toward a person - after experiencing ambiguous behavior that could be an early sign of sexual harassment. This negative stereotyping and defensive labor suggest that the costs of sexual harassment are greater than what scholars have previously documented. 

A second, emerging line of research examines how people believe romantic or sexual interest should be expressed. To what extent do people agree about how romantic interest in a coworker is best expressed, and what implications does this have for how people conceptualize sexual harassment? In the wake of a series of societal shifts, including the #MeToo movement and the Covid-19 pandemic, how do people believe that romantic or sexual interest should be expressed in contexts beyond the workplace? I take up these questions in ongoing research.