Students in my classes enjoy learning, engage each other often, apply what they learn to make social change–and have fun. I am trained as a medical sociologist which means that my teaching merges the study of social inequality with studies from the health sciences. I teach courses in Research Methods, Masculinities and Health, Social Determinants of Health, Intersectionality and Health, and Social Justice and Health. I teach the MS Capstone course also. Because my Ph.D. was focused on qualitative research while my M.S. in Biostatistics was focused on quantitative work, I love to challenge students to see the complexities in the social world that are inspired by the use of multiple methods.

For the first 20 years of my career, my research portfolio focused on gender relations, intersectionality and HIV prevention, treatment and care in the U.S, Kenya, and South Africa. These studies were interdisciplinary and community-based. I continue to hone in on studies of masculinities based gender-transformative health interventions to reduce HIV and violence risks and to improve HIV care and treatment outcomes. I have also taken my expertise to focus on improving male involvement in family planning outcomes. I have also carried out numerous critical media analyses that center on gender, race, health and the body. In partnership with scholars both domestically and globally, I have also been involved in scale development efforts that merge ideas about inequality and health to measure reproductive autonomy, power in relationships, and masculine ideologies that shape health outcomes. Currently, my research is honing in on how to take the lessons learned from these decades of work to improve HIV treatment and care programs, nursing education and practice, and health-focused interventions with men.