My public health research interests center on access to care and services for structurally vulnerable populations. These interests arise from my clinical background; as a Family Medicine and Preventive Medicine physician, I have provided care in a wide range of settings, including rural primary care, obstetrics, and substance use treatment, refugee and asylum seeker care, care for unhoused individuals, and care for hospitalized patients. In expanding my focus to include research with these communities and the ways they access care, I hope to examine and address some of the root causes making care so difficult in these populations.

During my time as an MPH student and Preventive Medicine fellow, I led the longitudinal cohort portion of an NIH funded RADxUP study at MaineHealth Institute of Research, which investigated COVID-19 home testing in structurally vulnerable communities. Through this work, I gained valuable skills in community engaged research, ethical engagement with vulnerable communities, study design and database management, as well large data-set analysis. I am now embarking on a project, through the Maine Medical Center Department of Medicine Academic Track, to analyze healthcare access and utilization among patients with substance use disorder (SUD) within the MaineHealth system, involving the creation of a new database of these patients. While focusing on healthcare utilization among people with SUD as my primary project, I plan to remain engaged with research and advocacy around healthcare access for vulnerable populations more broadly in our community.