Department of Society, Culture, Crime, and Justice Studies

Demography, International Development, Social Networks, Quantitative Methods, and Africa.

My research interests lie within the broad areas of development and demography. In development, I am currently researching the implications of international debt on the economic development of poor countries. I am using Kenya as a case study. In demography, I am interested in the fertility transitions that are underway in some African countries. While most of the previous studies on fertility transitions did emphasize structural changes for a fertility transition to take place, most of the fertility transitions currently underway in some countries of Africa are taking place without any appreciable economic changes. This, therefore, raises some questions concerning why this would be so. I am, therefore, applying a new theoretical handle, the social networks approach, to help explain this puzzling phenomenon.

PhD, Indiana University.