I am an associate professor in the Hudson College of Public Health at the University of Oklahoma Harold Hamm Health Campus (download my CV here). I am a political scientist, and my research focuses on health policy, state capacity, public health and crisis governance, political economy, and American political development.
My research examines how political institutions develop over time, how governments build and exercise capacity, and how authority and responsibility are distributed among governmental and non-state actors. Drawing on American political development, political economy, and theories of the policy process, I have examined these questions across public health, health care, disasters, pandemic response, and opioid use disorder. My work has been funded by organizations including the National Science Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
I have extensive leadership experience, including as a two-term president of the Oklahoma Public Health Association (OPHA), a statewide nonprofit organization; Chair of the Hudson College’s Faculty Board; and Co-Director of the Center for Health Outcomes, Research, and Policy. I also led the development of the Hudson College’s forthcoming PhD in Health Policy as well as its MPH in Health Policy.
My research has been published in outlets including the American Journal of Public Health, Policy History, JAMA, Studies in American Political Development, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). My article “Linking Public Health and Individual Medicine” received the Paper of the Year Award from the American Public Health Association and the American Journal of Public Health.
My article “Eliminating Malaria in the American South,” with George Mohler, was featured in the American Public Health Association’s book Public Health Then and Now: Landmark Papers from AJPH. My book, Health Divided: Public Health and Individual Medicine in the Making of the Modern American State, offers a reinterpretation of the foundations of modern American health policy, focusing on the divergence between policy regimes dealing with public health and with individual medical care.
My current book project, Governing Health, examines the fragmentation of U.S. public health systems in the modern era and the challenge of building institutions capable of confronting both chronic disease and acute threats. The project extends my longstanding research on American political development, state capacity, and the political foundations of public health.
Another major strand of my current research agenda examines governance under conditions of crisis. This work focuses on state capacity, networked governance, institutional adaptation, and the division of responsibility between governments and non-state service providers during disasters and other extreme events. Supported by multiple National Science Foundation awards, this research examines how governmental and nongovernmental organizations exchange information and resources, coordinate their activities, and adapt when governing institutions are placed under stress.
Additional ongoing research examines organizational decision-making in health care, opioid use disorder, the politics and institutional development of PEPFAR, and local governance and adaptation to extreme heat.
I am involved in the ongoing Global Oral History of PEPFAR project at SMU and am also actively engaged in public health workforce training within Oklahoma and as part of the Region 6 Public Health Training Center and the Region 6 Center for Health Security and Response.
My research on malaria was featured in a piece on NPR’s Morning Edition.