I recognize that disability justice originates and lives in the community, and I believe that out-of-the-system advocacy, dreaming, and other work are crucial for the liberation of disabled people. As someone producing scholarship critical of the U.S. health system, I hold a tension between documenting harm in the current health system and focusing on alternatives. My personal view is that we need to invest far more in addressing the social and structural causes of poor health and chronic disease and in community-based alternatives to the mental health system. Additionally, many people live with health conditions that require advanced medical treatments and assistive technologies, which I do not think can realistically shift to community settings. Instead, I think we need a government-funded and coordinated health care system. I have written more elsewhere about this tension and the need to make change in health systems.

While some may feel that writing yet another research paper or policy brief is a waste of time and resources, I think that research can contribute to evidence-based policy when it is targeted to the right policymakers, published in the right places, and accompanied by advocacy and media coverage. I strive to choose projects based on whether they address health policy questions and if new evidence could move the needle. I recognize that I am just one researcher, but I believe that scientists can collectively build a body of evidence that influences health policy, even in the face of powerful political and financial interests. 

I am just beginning my work as an independent researcher, as of 2025. I plan to write publicly, every few years, about what I've accomplished and the ways I have seen my scholarship contribute to policy and other types of change. Some metrics I will use to measure my impact include academic citations, media coverage, citations in organizational, policy, and legal documents, policies implemented relevant to my work (e.g., local, institutional, state, and federal), and feedback from collaborators and community stakeholders.

I get it wrong sometimes and occasionally cause harm through my research and advocacy (e.g., see this reflexivity piece on my research on weight and chronic pain from 2018 to 2020 and this reflexivity piece about my disability advocacy collaboration in Ghana from 2013 to 2017). However, I am also aware that much of the public health and healthcare literature is incredibly harmful to disabled people. I hope my intentional contributions help correct some of that, even when I make mistakes. By engaging with disability studies and disability justice scholarship in public health and healthcare contexts that often overlook this work, I seek to uplift these authors in fields where their ideas are too often ignored. I frequently revise or extend my own work as I am exposed to new knowledge, receive feedback, and continue to grow. As a human, I value feedback and continuing to learn and unlearn. I also believe that people (even those of us who share similar values and lived experiences) can hold significant differences in opinion and practice, and that is healthy.

As an independent researcher, I try to be intentional about my engagement with capitalistic, academic research systems. I also recognize that some affiliation is unavoidable because of funding structures. I currently fund and sustain my independent research on structural ableism by providing data analysis and research writing services for a range of health science projects. I approach this work with somewhat different intentionalities than my research on structural ableism, as described on my research services page.