I am currently working as a Lecturer of Anthropology at Middle Tennessee State University, after working for a year as a Lecturer of Anthropology at Eastern Washington University. I received my BA from the University of Michigan in Anthropology and Spanish, my MA in Latin American Studies from University of California, Los Angeles, and my PhD from The Ohio State University.

My dissertation, Beyond the Plate: Culinary Violence and The Oaxacan Chef, introduces the theoretical framework of culinary violence to food anthropology to examine how chefs from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca navigate the limitations placed on them and their food. Through ethnographic fieldwork in Oaxaca City, Oaxaca; Los Angeles, California; and Columbus, Ohio, and using archival review of representations of Oaxacan food and restaurant reviews, I show that culinary violence is not a physical act. Rather, this analytical tool demonstrates how chefs negotiate this unique form of symbolic violence by using their agency and cooking abilities to satisfy diners’ tastes, achieve their goals, and honor their identity.

My MA thesis, Dominican Baseball: An Exploration of the Dominican Academy System, explores the Dominican academy system run by Major League Baseball, to which young Latin American baseball players are recruited and signed at sixteen years old in their first step toward potential major league stardom.

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