RESEARCHER
THERAPIST
ORGANIZER
ART ACTIVIST
ADVOCATE

Welcome

Hi, I’m Alana!

I am a social worker, activist-research scholar, community organizer and burgeoning creative arts therapist who is committed to helping marginalized communities find their voice in various ways.

PUBLISHED IN

Hastings Center
Report

International Journal of
Drug Policy

Research
Gate

About Me

I've been called both a healer and connector who operates from a place of kindness and warmth. At the age of 12 I realized I had a speech disfluency, and I suddenly found myself navigating stuttering at a developmentally vulnerable age. It's early challenges like this that shaped my commitment to justice work which empowers those who feel marginalized and silenced. As a child and even through my early adulthood, I have had to navigate the assumptions, misunderstandings and even stigma attached to not speaking one’s truth. I advocate for and help people find their voice!

My Work

I’m committed to examining how criminal legal system involvement and stigmatization shapes the health of individuals, especially women.

Research Investigator

I’ve dedicated my career to examining how criminal legal system involvement and stigmatization shapes the health of individuals, especially women.

Mental Health Counselor

As a Therapist I have provided counseling services to diverse clientele experiencing loss, anxiety, traumatic experiences, and complex life developments and transitions.

Therapeutic Arts Consultant

I’ve consulted with diverse health agencies to provide therapeutic arts services from governmental health facilities to community-based organizations.

Featured Project

“The effects of hyper-surveillance on health and well-being of justice-involved families: a structural violence perspective”

This project seeks to explore how policing interactions in the form of surveillance as well as other community-level forms of harm (such as community disorganization, lack of safety) shape health and well being.  

Publications
Testimonies and Healing: Anti-oppressive Research with Black Women and the Implications for  Compassionate Ethical Care
Testimonies and Healing: Anti-oppressive Research with Black Women and the Implications for  Compassionate Ethical Care

This essay explores ways in which the qualitative interview can provide contexts for women to name their experiences of oppression, reconstruct the meanings they attach to them, and channel their stories of navigating harm to promote the health of others.

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Stigma, surveillance, and wounded healing: Promoting a critical ethics of care in research with formerly incarcerated Black women
Stigma, surveillance, and wounded healing: Promoting a critical ethics of care in research with formerly incarcerated Black women

Black women experience myriad challenges post incarceration, from managing stigma within social relationships to navigating surveillance when interfacing with service systems. It is these challenges that also make them vulnerable participants in community-based research. This study explores how 28 justice-involved Black women experience the research process.

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Navigating Intersectional Stigma: Strategies for Coping Among Cisgender Women of Color
Navigating Intersectional Stigma: Strategies for Coping Among Cisgender Women of Color

Intersectionality is a critical tool for understanding how socially constructed categories shape multiple dimensions of lived experience. In this study, we apply an intersectional lens to explore how women of color from two different contexts, Hyderabad, India and Chicago, Illinois, manage gendered forms of stigma and oppression as they converge with other devalued statuses, namely living with HIV or having a history of drug use or incarceration.

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Recent Publications

"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke & saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was  joy"

- R Tagore 

Get in touch.