Research
The work behind the work.
My research sits where media psychology, gerontology, narrative inquiry, and experience design meet. The questions I care about need quantitative and qualitative methods both, so I use them together.
How the research works
Empirical and narrative.
Always both.
Every project begins from the same conviction: the conditions under which people feel seen, known, and present can be understood, and therefore designed.
Memory, narrative, and identity across the lifespan
How people maintain a continuous sense of self through change, and what happens when the conditions supporting that continuity are absent or poorly designed.
Media, parasocial relationships, and self-concept
How relationships with media figures, characters, and hosts shape identity, belonging, and mental health in underrepresented communities.
The psychology of aging, legacy, and meaning-making
How people make sense of a life as it changes, what they want to leave behind, and how narrative tools support that process.
Immersive experience and emotional design in care contexts
How designed experiences, sensory, narrative, relational, shape the felt quality of care and hold a person's full presence.
Active Inquiries
Three questions the work is currently asking.
In development
Transmedia Worldbuilding in Care Environments
How do multiple pathways into a narrative world, sensory, spatial, relational, object-based, create conditions for presence and belonging in care settings? A genuinely underexplored intersection of media psychology, experience design, and healthcare.
Ongoing
What an Object Carries
When an object moves from one person to another, what travels with it? Drawing on object relations theory, reminiscence practice, and ongoing lived fieldwork. Implications for legacy practice, memory care design, and how families hold someone's story through change.
Ongoing
Still Here
Story collection from people aging in nursing homes, hospice, and prisons, navigating significant life transitions inside institutional systems not designed for their full presence. What does it mean to age inside a system built for something other than you?
Publications & Projects
The body of work.
2026
McFarland · Rethinking True Crime
Eudamonic Wellness of True Crime Hosts
A co-authored examination of what sustained engagement with true crime content does to the hosts who produce it, and what it reveals about parasocial connection and identity.
2025
Dissertation · Fielding Graduate University · Media Psychology
Exploring the Role of Need for Cognition on Podcast Companion Engagement
An investigation into how cognitive engagement shapes the parasocial bonds audiences form with podcast hosts, and what that reveals about identity, narrative, and media connection across the lifespan.
Read the dissertation →2024
Routledge · Fandom in Marginalized Communities · Co-authored with Tieranni Parquet
The Power of Parasocial Relationships: Fandoms and Black Men's Mental Health through HBO's Insecure
How parasocial relationships with fictional characters support identity, belonging, and mental health in communities historically underrepresented in media.
View book →2017
TEDx · TEDxCheyenne
The Damage of "Difficult"
How the words we use about people shape their sense of who they are. People are never the problem. Problems are problems. People are people.
Watch the talk →The Work
This research grows through collaboration.
If you're working on something adjacent, or want to be part of what comes next, let's talk.
Get in touch →Studio