Professor Thomas’s research sits at the intersection of positive relationships at work and worker embodiment. Through empirical and theoretical approaches, she investigates how striving to meet organizational goals draws upon—and often depletes—workers’ bodily resources. She explores how caring interactions might counterbalance the negative impacts of performance demands on the body, how organizations can effectively foster these interactions, and how workers navigate emerging occupations that amplify these tensions. Her work pays particular attention to the emerging occupation of content creation which blurs the boundaries between the virtual and the embodied, placing novel demands on workers to perform expertise through their bodies. Across all research domains, she employs archival and field research methods to examine how people navigate evolving expectations for performance and care at work. Her prior research has informed interventions aimed at supporting medical student well-being and long-term professional fulfillment. She also contributes to curriculum design to promote interprofessional learning among medical, dental, nursing, public health, and social work students.
