My research examines how social capital—trust, networks, relationships, and reciprocity—contributes to student success, persistence, and belonging in higher education. My work explores how students build and leverage relationships and institutional resources and how colleges and universities can intentionally create environments that expand access to these networks and opportunities. My scholarship has been presented nationally and internationally, including at the Oxford University Education Research Symposium. My research has also extended internationally to Italy, where I taught South Carolina Honors College courses in 2018 and 2022 that used immersive learning to examine social capital and social networks in the Italian context.

As a 2026–2027 Student Affairs and Academic Support Faculty Fellow at the University of South Carolina, I am leading a mixed-methods research project examining how social capital contributes to student success at a large public research university. The study uses surveys, focus groups, interviews, and institutional data to examine students’ access to relationships, networks, and resources, with an emphasis on translating findings into practices that strengthen student support and engagement. This project builds upon my earlier research on social capital and the persistence of historically underserved college students.