Community

Community is central to all research, education, and therapeutic care and I prioritize this in my work. Research that is community-centered and community-based results in findings that are far more applicable to making actual change or providing insights that matter.

Although distributing research findings to academic outlets such as peer-reviewed journals is incredibly important, I recognize the importance of distributing information to the masses so they can digest what we learn as scientists. If scientists keep their research findings and knowledge confined to academic journals, the research results in little impact. Therefore, I am very committed to disseminating the most up-to-date information about sex to as wide an audience as possible.

To achieve this, I write for and regularly contribute to several media outlets. I served as the Scientific Content Expert for Coral, an interactive sexuality education app for couples and individuals to achieve horizontal happiness, and I have written extensively for Psychology Today. I have also been called upon to provide expert voice for several media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, National Public Radio (NPR), Men’s Health Magazine, Cosmopolitan Magazine, The Globe and Mail, among many others. When I lived in Kentucky, I had a monthly television segment on ABC 36 called “Pillow Talk”, that provided me with an opportunity to educate Kentuckians on sexual health issues through daytime television. I have been and continue to be a guest on several podcasts. Currently, I run a bi-monthly series in the Twin Cities called Sex Science Happy Hour where I interview a different expert on a different topic and we take questions from the audience. Additionally, I developed a community-based project called The Abstinence Project that aims to expose the harms of abstinence only sex education through the art of storytelling.