Science Meets Storytelling
Through my writing, I explore how digital spaces shape mental health, trauma, grief, and resilience—particularly for youth and adults of color. I blend rigorous academic research with accessible, human-centered storytelling to elevate underrepresented voices and drive community-centered innovation.
Explore My Work
Academic Publications
Peer-reviewed studies that explore the digital lives of marginalized communities, advancing knowledge in social work, data science, and public health.
Articles and Essays
Essays that reflect on digital grief, emotional well-being, and the intersections of race, identity, and online life.
Media Features
Appearances and commentary in major media outlets unpacking how social platforms affect the emotional and social realities of people of color.
Spotlight on Impact
Digital Narratives of Grief and Resilience: Insights from the Integrating Emotional Stories Online (IESO) Platform
This interdisciplinary study examines how Black Harlem residents and New York City university students use social media to express grief and daily stress. Using the Integrating Emotional Stories Online (IESO) platform, researchers collected anonymous posts and analyzed them with qualitative and computational methods. Findings revealed four main themes: interpersonal grief, systemic grief, everyday stressors, and practices of self-care and joy.
Access My Writing
Hardiness scripts: high-achieving african american boys in a chicago charter school navigating community violence and school
This paper reviews empirical studies in community psychology to highlight how neighborhood level factors influence youth, family, and program interventions and underscores the importance of using participatory methods to create sustainable, socially just community practices.
Sticks, stones and Facebook accounts: What violence outreach workers know about social media and urban-based gang violence in Chicago
This chapter reviews how social media use relates to emotional experiences across anxiety, depression, hope, and inspiration, emphasizing that personal traits, motivations, and life stage influence whether digital interaction leads to emotional support or distress.
Introduction to the Special Issue on the Intersections of Race, Gender, and Class in the Wake of a National Crisis: The State of Black Boys and Men Post-Ferguson
This research across three studies (total N = 876) finds that men tend to view their female ex-partners more positively than women view their male ex-partners, with factors such as permissive sexual attitudes and perceived social support helping to explain the difference.
Gang violence on the digital street: Case study of a South Side Chicago gang member’s Twitter communication
This case study analyzes tweets from Gakirah Barnes during a two-week period surrounding a nearby death to reveal how gang-involved youth perform reciprocal violence scripts through online bragging, insults, threats, and mourning, showing how street culture is enacted in real time on social media.
“Police took my homie I dedicate my life 2 his revenge”: Twitter tensions between gang-involved youth and police in Chicago
This article examines how gang‑involved youth in Chicago use Twitter to express chronic grief and anger following a police shooting and how they frame the Chicago Police Department as a target for retaliation by using terms like #CPDK.
I Know God’s Got a Day 4 Me: Violence, Trauma, and Coping Among Gang-Involved Twitter Users
This case study examines over 400 tweets by Gakirah Barnes to explore how gang‑involved youth use digital communication to manage violence, grief, trauma, and coping practices in their communities.
Are Community Violence-Exposed Youth at Risk of Engaging in Delinquent Behavior? A Review and Implications for Residential Treatment Research and Practice
This systematic review examines qualitative research on school bullying and victimization published between 2004 and 2014 and finds that studies across 24 projects emphasized emic perspectives, context specificity, iterative design, power relations, and naturalistic inquiry to capture experiences of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders in their own words.
A Systematic Review of Research Strategies Used in Qualitative Studies on School Bullying and Victimization
This review synthesizes qualitative studies on school bullying and victimization published between 2004 and 2014 and finds that researchers have emphasized emic perspectives, context specificity, iterative inquiry, power relations, and naturalistic methods to capture the experiences of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders in their own words.
Rethinking Prisoner Reentry
This essay examines how mass incarceration and reentry efforts concentrate disadvantage in poor urban neighborhoods and argues for reevaluating reentry policy to better support individuals and communities through design of ethical and localized interventions informed by social justice principles .
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