Research
You've just found an amalgamation of my research interests, passions, and ongoing adventures! Whether I'm looking at public health discourses or programmatic policies, I'm drawn to the practical applications (and implications) of what I study. Many of these projects are in-progress, most are related to accessibility, and all stem from a desire to engage with both scholarly conversations and real-world issues.
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Have fun snooping—and feel free to reach out if you have any questions or want to chat!
Mask Blocs as Counterpublic Formations
Having emerged from the state-led normalization of infection and rollback of COVID mitigations, mask blocs are a proactive, grassroots response to institutional inaction and abandonment. I argue that mask blocs, along with other COVID organizers and activists operating independently of traditional public health channels, constitute a counterpublic that resists individualism and disabled disposability. Analysis of publicly circulated texts (including digital toolkits, zines, and social media posts) reveals discursive practices that challenge prevailing health narratives that locate COVID-related risk solely within disabled bodies and resist the eugenicist logics lining public health policy.
This was presented at the 2025 Rhetoric of Health and Medicine Symposium, as part of a panel titled "Cultivating Urgent Counterpublics: Feminist, Disabled, and Activist Interventions in COVID-19 Rhetoric."
Tracing the Discursive Landscape of Mask Bans
In recent years, policies banning face masks have emerged in various locations—from cities to counties to college campuses. While previous research has been conducted on mask mandates and public resistance against mask-wearing, mask bans (and their social impacts) remain under-researched. As more civil rights organizations draw attention to how mask bans harm medically vulnerable populations, examining the discourses surrounding these policies becomes all the more urgent.
This ongoing project applies a form of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to case studies of various mask bans to observe how power and ideology affect(ed) the relevant discourses and better understand the impact these policies have on marginalized communities.
This project was initially funded by the University of Central Florida’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, and the first of several case studies was presented (in poster form) at the university's 2025 Summer Research Showcase. Next steps include expanding this analysis to other mask bans to map variation and interdiscursivity across policy conversations.
Temporal Rhetorics in COVID-19 Discourse
I am interested in the social construction of the COVID-19 Pandemic and am actively exploring the temporal rhetorics involved in how the period has been historicized—or discursively shifted from a contemporary concern to a historical event. This historicization facilitates (and justifies) the inaccessibility of public spaces, erasing disabled and medically vulnerable people from both public life and the prevailing cultural narrative(s).
A draft of this ongoing project was presented in March 2025 at The Pennsylvania State University's Feminist Perspectives on Body, Disability, and Health.
Syllabi Accessibility Statements as a Pedagogical Genre
Syllabi function as the primary mediating document of classrooms, and the policies outlined in them—including syllabi accessibility statements (SAS)—can impact how students engage with a course. The exploration of this genre holds crucial pedagogical implications, but despite being found in all course syllabi, SAS remain under-researched.
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I am interested in SAS both broadly and specifically in rhetoric/composition studies, and I am in the early stages of exploring the genre. A literature review of this project has been presented (in poster form) at the University of Central Florida's Student Scholar Symposium and Amy Zeh High Impact Practices Showcase, as well as the Center for Interdisciplinary Writing and Research's 2025 Virtual Undergraduate Research Conference.
The Construction of the Ableist Nation-State in Divakaruni's Independence
Set during the turbulent period of 1940s India, Chitra Banerjee-Divakaruni’s Independence is written through the vantage points of three sisters to localize the seismic events of Partition. This paper explores how one of these sisters, Jamini, is characterized solely through her disability. Using narrative prosthesis and the medical, moral, and charity models of disability as analytical frameworks, this paper argues that Jamini’s characterization reduces her disability to a mere plot device that reinforces ableist notions of national belonging. Each thread of Jamini’s character—from her intensely virtuous display, to her sacrificial attempt, to the child she could bear only through the negotiation of a pity-fueled moment of intimacy—is woven together by her inherent deficiency and undesirability as a disabled woman. Those who are disabled may contribute to the nation-state’s future, but they do not fit neatly within the national identity. Ultimately, Independence constructs a postcolonial nation-state that can be imagined only by the able-bodied.
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This paper is undergoing final revisions. A complete draft was presented in March 2025 as part of a panel titled "South Asian Conflict Literature: Partition and Kashmir" at the University of Central Florida's graduate-level English Symposium, where it received the "Best Student Paper" award. ​