Marisa Westbrook is a PhD candidate in Health and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Colorado Denver. Her research interests include inequality, mental health, urban politics, housing and displacement. Her ethnographic dissertation project examines the embodied experiences of housing insecurity in changing neighborhoods, drawing on 2-years of following Denver Latinx residents facing displacement pressure and tracking coalition and city-sponsored housing and anti-displacement policy development. Her current community-engaged work also includes following the impact of state-led neighborhood transitions on residents (highway expansion, public housing redevelopment), and documenting the impacts of unconditional cash transfers on the health of homeless populations. She has published on issues related to the criminalization of homelessness, food insecurity, substance use, and health care access in outlets including Journal of Adolescent Health, Journal of Social Distress & Homelessness, and Geoforum. She holds an MPH in Health and Social Behavior from the University of California Berkeley and a BA in International Affairs from George Washington University.
