Biography

I am passionate about understanding how we can create happier societies, insofar as I seek to comprehend how our political, economic, and social institutions can be shaped to ensure individuals can pursue happiness. Ultimately, I aspire to advocate for happiness to be a central objective of government and to use happiness research to create public policies. As an undergraduate at Brown University, I developed an independent major in Happiness, which spanned eight fields of study and explored the individual and societal nature of happiness. Coupled with a second major in Political Science, I spent my undergraduate examining the politics of happiness, culminating in my honors senior thesis, which analyzed why the current policy-making process in the United States does not make people happier. By pursuing the MPhil in Political and Economic Sociology, I hope to deepen my understanding of how political and economic institutions impact societal wellbeing. Specifically, I will explore how political and economic institutions exacerbate or minimize status inequality, a key determinant of happiness inequality. By rooting happiness in a sociological context, and thus studying the structural nature of happiness, I hope to leave Cambridge with a more robust understanding of how we can make our environment conducive to the pursuit of happiness.

Previous Education

Brown University