I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Middle Tennessee State University. I received my PhD in Political Science from the University of Oregon in 2015. Before joining the faculty of MTSU, I served as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Amherst College. Prior to Amherst, I completed a year as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Lafayette College in Easton, PA, followed by a year-long postdoctoral fellowship in Environmental Studies at Goucher College in Baltimore, MD.
My research focuses on American environmental policy and politics. My work is informed by the traditions of American Political Development, contemporary political theory, critical policy studies, and pragmatist philosophy. My current book project, The Parties’ Environment: Partisanship and Environmental Political Development from Theodore Roosevelt to the Reagan Revolution, explores the role of partisanship in shaping environmental policy in the U.S. I use archival methods and discourse analysis to trace evolving conceptions of environmental protection and their translation into policy.
My dissertation examined the theory and practice of collaborative environmental governance through a case study of forest management. My next book project will examine the evolution of American agricultural politics in the twentieth century.