Much like the terms and conditions associated with the technologies we use every day, the “terms and conditions” of employment are rarely transparent or meaningfully considered because the most consequential risks are neither clearly articulated nor fully disclosed. These hidden terms typically become visible only when individuals experience risk, harm, exclusion, or retaliation at work. My research examines how employees navigate institutional systems of risk, harm, and accountability within organizations, with particular attention to the unspoken rules, informal practices, and power dynamics that shape workplace experiences. Bridging social and personality psychology with organizational behavior and organizational justice, my work examines what is omitted from job descriptions, HR policies, and formal grievance procedures, and the consequences of these omissions for both employees and organizations.

A central contribution of my work is the development of anticipatory retaliation, a construct that captures the informal, preemptive punishment employees face for merely considering or signaling intent to report wrongdoing. This research shows how employees who attempt to pursue procedural justice are often disciplined before any formal grievance is filed, through ostracism, reputational harm, and career constraint. By reframing grievance systems as potential mechanisms of organizational control rather than solely as mechanisms of protection, this work helps explain why many individuals disengage or fail to receive justice when reporting despite clear evidence of mistreatment. 

Building on this justice-oriented framework, my research also examines how unresolved workplace mistreatment can, in rare cases, escalate into retributive retaliation, including targeted workplace violence. This work conceptualizes violence not as impulsive or senseless, but as a morally framed response to sustained interactional injustice and perceived procedural futility. Informed in part by my work as a research fellow with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, this line of research situates escalation within broader organizational and cultural norms surrounding fairness, blame, and deservedness. Together, these insights highlight how failures of organizational justice can produce consequences that extend well beyond the workplace.

In parallel, I study workplace code-switching as a context-dependent form of identity regulation shaped by informal norms, power dynamics, and perceived expectations of professionalism. This research examines how employees learn to code-switch, who feels compelled to do so, why employees choose to do so, and the psychological and relational costs of these adaptations. I developed and validated a code-switching scale across multiple studies, challenging prevailing assumptions about who code-switches and demonstrating its broader organizational relevance. My findings suggest that code-switching often functions as a strategic, situational response to exclusion, social pressure, or efforts to build rapport, with uneven costs across employees. 

Methodologically, I am a mixed-methods scholar whose work spans qualitative interviews, archival analysis, scale development, field surveys, experiments, and emerging methods such as virtual reality. I have taken an entrepreneurial approach to research design, building collaborations with nonprofit organizations, municipal agencies, and law enforcement partners, and using unconventional data sources such as Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to examine employee behavior and institutional processes that are typically difficult to observe. Across projects, my goal is to produce theoretically rigorous research that clarifies how organizational justice systems succeed or fail—and what those failures cost individuals, organizations, and communities.