Cultural anthropologist who concentrated on the rural United States. She wrote "Poverty in Rural America: A Case Study," an ethnographic study of poverty in upstate New York and "Endangered Spaces, Enduring Places: Change, Identity, and Survival in Rural America," which describes changes now transforming rural communities in the Northeast. In 1992-93, she was an Associate with the Western Rural Development Center in Corvallis, Oregon, where she conducted research on rural poverty in several other regions of the United States. She taught in the Anthropology Department at Ithaca College and the Department of Rural Sociology at Cornell University. She was a consultant and trainer for human service programs around the nation, including community action programs, social service agencies, and Cooperative Extension as well as Head Start and rural school districts, as well as serving on several national and state advisory boards related to rural poverty.