Biography

I am an Assistant Professor at the UMass Amherst School of Public Policy. My research combines mixed methods and computational approaches to examine how nonprofits and individuals organize to advance social justice and policy change through community philanthropy, public engagement, and social media advocacy, as well as how nonprofits shape and are shaped by place-based disadvantage and inequality. My research program is interwoven with three core themes–the 3Cs: Community, Collective and Connective.

Rather than taking for granted that all nonprofits are “created” equal, my research probes how nonprofit organizations shape—and in turn, are shaped by—the place they serve and policy issues they intend to tackle. For instance, I examine the effect of place-based inequality on philanthropic capacity, and in turn, their intermediary roles in community leadership, public engagement, and social media advocacy to advance change. I have published in Public Management Review, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Voluntas, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, Academy of Management Proceedings, and Journal of Nonprofit Education and Leadership and received several research awards, including the Best Conference Paper Award, Emerging Scholar Award, and RGK-ARNOVA President’s Research Award from ARNOVA.

I served as the Managing Editor of NVSQ (2015-2020) and currently serve on the leadership teams for the Donor Advised Fund Common Interest Group, the Data and Analytics Section (DAS), Theory, Issues, Boundaries Section (TIBS), Development Committee and consultative working groups of ARNOVA. I am a nonprofit scholar, an aspiring ceramicist, a new mom and a Hongkonger.