Artist, Storyteller, & Researcher

What does that mean? I am a digital and performance storyteller with passions for decolonial and anti-racist public health practice and research. I am interested in using creativity to identify and address fundamental causes of health inequity. I am a PhD student in the Department of Health Promotion & Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. My research and practice is grounded in the use of Arts and Culture in Public Health as a conceptual framework. An applied theatre artist, storyteller, writer, and percussionist, I believe in the healing and transformative power of the arts. 

Through an intersectional, anti-racist, social determinants lens, I am particularly focused on the health of all historically-excluded persons, including Black and brown people. I collaborate with a myriad of people from difference experiences and walks of life. I use applied theatre, poetry, storytelling, play, music, dance, and other creative methods as a means of "bending the future" together...or...as forms of inquiry and analysis. While working to understand how systems and social environments reproduce health inequities, I use participatory methods to promote more caring, collaborative, community-accountable approaches to health promotion. 

My scholarship is transdisciplinary and community-centered. I am currently working on several projects which include Body-focused Repetitive Behavior (BFRB) health education, African American caregiver health, and Adolescent sexual and reproductive health inequities. Check out my Projects or Publications to learn more!