​Thank you for visiting! I am a PhD Candidate in the Department of Community and Environmental Sociology and the International Development Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. I am also a Visiting Researcher at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito and a Visiting Scientist with the Charles Darwin Foundation. 

My research focuses on the interplay of science and policymaking, the transnational flow of ideas, and the global politics of food quality. Specifically, I explore how Global North food standards are authorized and diffused to shape food system regulation in the Global South, and how the form and content of such standards reflects and reshapes state-driven efforts to develop non-traditional exports and niche market goods in an increasingly integrated global economy. My work has appeared in the peer-reviewed journal Agriculture and Human Values. 

My research has been supported by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, with additional funding from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the UW–Madison Graduate School, two Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships, and a UW–Madison/Mellon Foundation Area and International Studies Research Fellowship. I have also received the Henry Steenbock Scholarship and the Ruth and Carl Miller Academic Merit Award from the UW–Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. 

​​Prior to beginning my PhD program, I worked full-time as a bilingual educator and administrator at a K-12 school in Comayagua, Honduras. I also completed a master’s degree in environmental studies, focusing on sustainable development and public policy. I worked on research projects in tropical agriculture and rural livelihood development with Runa Foundation in Tena, Ecuador, exploring market-building strategies for indigenous farmers in the Amazon. 

​​​I am originally from Verona, Wisconsin. In my free time, I like to cook, work with my wife in our community garden plot, walk in the woods near our home, and plan thrilling adventures as a D&D dungeon master.