She received her PhD in Social Work and Anthropology from the University of Michigan. Her ethnographic research addresses housing transitions of older adults from a network perspective. As health, mobility and kin and peer networks alter, she explores how older adults contemplate their homes and its contents. She studies housing transitions because, while aging in place is often preferred and cost-effective, inevitably some older adults will undertake the emotional and physical labor, as well as the negotiation of medical, financial and long-term care infrastructures, involved in relocation. Her research has been supported by the National Institute on Aging, the John A. Hartford Foundation and the University of Michigan.