I am from the suburbs of Chicago, IL. I was an undergraduate student at Ball State University, a Master's student at Illinois State University, and a doctoral student at The University of Texas at Austin. I also was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. I have been a faculty member at the University of Arizona since 2006. Much of my research has been guided by attachment and interdependence theory, as well as from other relevant theories and lenses e.g. symbolic interactionism, family systems, commitment, feminism, queer theory) Initially, my focus was specific to attachment representations and marital quality during the transition to parenthood for new parents. My focus expanded to include interpersonal topics including relational sacrifices and commitment, as well as the study of cohabitors. I bridged these aforementioned areas of study with a focus on examining the transition to parenthood for pregnant, unmarried, cohabitors. I continue to study relational sacrifices and relationshiquality e.g. commitment, satisfaction) as well as beliefs about relationships and marriage. In much of my research I take a dyadic approach e.g, Actor-Partner Interdependence Models) I am especially interested in understanding romantic relationships using daily diary data given the statistical advantages of daily diary data e.g. fixed effects, within-person variability, and lagged effects of relationshiqualty constructs such as satisfaction and commitment)