I’m an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where I teach classes on family dynamics and qualitative research methods. My academic work on mental labor and marital power dynamics has been published in the American Sociological Review, Journal of Marriage and Family, and Gender & Society, received multiple awards from the American Sociological Association, and been funded by organizations like Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences and the Mental Research Institute. In one line of research, I investigate the mechanisms that perpetuate labor inequality in couples: How do spouses’ emotions both reflect and shape their expectations of one another? Is housework devalued when women do it, or are women assigned devalued work? How do couples use humor to defuse tension and maintain the status quo? In another line of work, I focus on how gender norms are reproduced – or disrupted – across generations: how are contemporary parents navigating their children’s gender socialization in a context of extreme polarization?
My 2025 book What’s on Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life draws from nearly 200 interviews with same- and different-gender parents about how they divvy up the mental work involved in running a household and raising kids. Who notices we’re running low on milk? Who researches childcare centers? Who decides where to go on vacation? I learned that in most different-gender couples, the answer is: She does. The book documents women’s heavy mental workload, but it also explains how and why this inequality develops, even among couples who aim for something more equitable, and showcases alternative ways of allocating mental labor.