“My research is largely about how families communicate across social identity differences. More specifically focused on how families deal with religious differences. How they talk about that and what that experience is like. The work that I am trying to finish up now is on how parents communicate acceptance or nonacceptance, or something in between, of their children when there is a significant religious difference.

“A long time ago when I first became a researcher in academia, I was like, ‘I can’t research my life. I have to pick some topic that’s really out there and interesting.’ And then I realized that everyone did ‘me-search’ where they research things they identify with. [My research] grew largely out of my own experiences and some challenges that I faced in my own relationship with my parents. As people change and ask questions about their faith, it can be really difficult to talk about. It can feel like a rejection of the family’s identity if you’re from a really religious family. When I first started talking to people about it, it really resonated with them. I got very excited trying to figure out more about this experience and how we can possibly make it better.

“When I started learning how to do the art of research, I took a lot of classes in quantitative research with big surveys where you get data from tons of people and you’re analyzing it statistically. But the longer I’ve been a researcher, I’ve realized most of the questions I wanted to know the answers to can’t be answered with a survey. So my favorite part about research is just sitting down and doing interviews with people. I really enjoy getting to know people personally and hearing from so many different experiences. Even though my general research area is born out of my own experience, it’s really fascinating to hear the variety of experiences and families that people come from.”