My research portfolio has always been about long-term impact. The questions that move me, and the insights I deliver, answer the immediate need while considering the population much further down the road.

It wasn’t until recently that I realized my approach to research was based on how my father taught me woodworking: build the thing people need now, and make sure it’ll still be serving their kids.

To centralize and name my research work, I pulled it all together under one social science lab - Ghost Lab - named for Avery Gordon’s approach to research.

The past continues to impact the present, like a ghost trapped in a haunted house, and it’s our jobs as researchers to seek out these ghosts and invite them into the work; they already haunt what we study.