About Me |
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In September 2024, I joined the University of Oregon's School of Planning, Public Policy, and Management as an Assistant Professor of Environmental Administration. I received my Ph.D in Environmental Science and Management and MA in Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara's Bren School, and I am a former USIP Peace Scholar Fellow.
I am an interdisciplinary social scientist studying environmental governance, or the institutions (rules, practices, and processes) that determine how societies manage natural resources and the environment. Specifically, I combine theories and methodological frameworks from political science, public administration, and environmental justice to answer two questions: (1) How do communities organize themselves into environmental governance in settings where the state is weak (i.e., in “areas of limited statehood”)? and (2) What explains opposition to environmental policy in extraction-dependent communities? Although my research features cases that are thousands of miles apart – e.g., urban Liberia and rural Oregon – its overarching purpose is to identify and evaluate strategies for enhancing the legitimacy, and thus durability, of environmental policies. Achieving this purpose often requires an inductive approach to research that engages both ordinary people and practitioners. Accordingly, I regularly partner with local organizations to conduct fieldwork that links theory to practice (and vice versa), capturing how communities experience, contest, and shape environmental governance. I have been fortunate enough to publish in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory and International Peacekeeping, and my research has been supported by organizations like the Folke Bernadotte Academy. In my free time, you can find me either climbing or running in whatever the closest mountain range is. Please email me at [email protected] if you would like to chat! |