Selected Research Projects
Upcoming project (Spring 2026)
Refugee Encampment, School-aged Pregnancy and Motherhood: A Visual Critical Ethnography of Refugee Girls’ Educational Disruptions, Agency, and Resilience at Dzaleka Refugee Camp
This project is a photovoice critical ethnography focusing on schooling after pregnancy among refugee girls and young women in an encampment context in Malawi, examining how education is reclaimed amidst displacement and structural barriers. This research is funded through the National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship.
2024 to present
Visual Narratives of Forced Displacement, Schooling and Re-Settlement Among Refugee Youth in Grand Forks, ND
This photovoice study centers on how refugee and asylum-seeking students navigate integration in American schools and broader society, with a focus on a school district in North Dakota. Together with the participants, we seek to identify a support framework for refugee and asylum-seeking students in their (re)settled schools and communities. This research is funded by the College of Education and Human Development at the University of North Dakota.
Educational Journeys of Recently Graduated Women in Higher Education Traversing Multiple Spaces: Malawi, Hawai‘i, North Dakota, and Sri Lanka
This transnational digital storytelling project examines the experiences of women from rural communities who recently graduated from higher education institutions across different regions, including Malawi, Sri Lanka, Hawai‘i, and North Dakota. We investigate how these women transitioned into school systems, the barriers and oppressions that affect(ed) their educational journey, and their freedoms and agential power that they possessed in their post-secondary education.
2020 - 2024
Emergency Remote Learning and Women in Higher Education During COVID-19: An Analysis of Zimbabwe and Malawi
This transnational photovoice study examined how African female collegians within the context of Southern Africa, cases of Malawi and Zimbabwe, navigate(d) and negotiate(d) emergency remote learning during the COVID-19 crisis. The data highlight that participants navigated emergency remote learning by creating a third space of hybridity—others of themselves—that centered on personal-internal power and collective action rooted in Ubuntucentric solidarity to subvert marginality within and beyond the academy.
2019 - 2024
The Im/possibilities of (Un)making In-school Pregnancy and Student Motherhood [as Praxis]: Schooling Post-pregnancy Amidst Health and Social Crises in Malawi
Utilizing a mixed methods participatory-social justice design, this study addressed the barriers to school re-entry by: (1) examining and describing how pregnant learners and school-aged mothers navigate and negotiate experiences related to schooling post-pregnancy, and (2) identifying a support framework that ensures continued learning and an enabling policy environment that allows equitable education for pregnant learners and school-aged mothers in Malawi.