I am very interested in what enables smaller, more rural communities to become more sustainable and resilient to challenges. While the concept of resilience has been debated and described in many ways, for our purposes, we consider resilience to be the ability of a municipality to withstand, respond to, and recover from adverse events...which could include challenges such as climate change, PFAS, COVID-19, economic shocks, among others. Most research explores larger city responses, with much less exploration of smaller communities, such as exist in Maine and much of New England.

Some of my current research explores the responses of Maine municipalities to COVID-19, as an indication of their capacities to carry out functions such as communicate digitally, apply for grants, and maintain community connections.

Initial papers are posted below.