I am a Ph.D. candidate in Human Resources at Cornell University’s ILR School and a fellow at Cornell’s Ithaca Co-Lab, an Associate at the Institute for Compensation Studies at Cornell University, and a member of Cornell’s Migration Lab.

I began my academic journey with a clear focus on micro-level compensation research, but over time, my interests have expanded to include turnover, stratification, and the role of government policy on firm decision-making. After much exploration, these interests coalesced into my dissertation topic: how organizations shape employment-relevant decisions such as worker mobility, selection, pay practices, and turnover through their interactions with and responses to labour market intermediaries and government regulations. I mainly study these topics through the phenomena of immigration, compensation, and government policy.

A consistent theme throughout my work is a focus on vulnerable workers, whether frontline, immigrant, or low-wage. Ultimately, I hope that by studying the antecedents and impacts of decisions made by large labour market actors, my research can inform both government and organizational policies and practices to improve the lives of the communities most affected by inequality.

In the future, I plan to leverage my data on high-skilled visa workers to study how employment structures can influence innovation outcomes. Moreover, I intend to examine how firms inject funding into universities to gain access to foreign talent pools. 

I was born and raised near Niagara Falls on the Canadian side of the border (from my biased perspective, the side with the better view) and then moved to Vancouver to complete my undergraduate degree in International Economics at the University of British Columbia. Before starting graduate school, I worked in student housing as a resident coordinator and then as a technical recruiter, before eventually stepping into academic life.

Outside of research, I bartend for graduate students, play volleyball, and perform standup comedy. I also enjoy partaking in my hobbies of photography and videography when I have the time. 

Contact: rke28@cornell.edu