I am a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of English at the University of Delaware where I teach place-based literature and writing courses. In 2016 I earned my doctorate from the Literature and Environment program at the University of Nevada, Reno. I also hold an MA in Environmental Humanities from the University of Utah.

Right now I’m finishing a book about the aesthetics of scientific observation. A Natural History of the Eye: American Scientific Arts Before the Civil War argues that knowing the political and economic significance of early American natural history requires fully understanding the modes of vision—and visual production—the field promoted. Chapters interpret the civic happiness of the nation’s first natural history museum and the innovative ways writers used narrative to help readers “behold” nature. Other chapters analyze the ethics of thinking about how animals from moles to mollusks see (or don’t see) their world, and what impact sentiments like pleasure, delight, and anticipation have on a very big book of birds. 

The book combines affect, environmental, and visual theories to documents a shift from worries about human benefits to a willingness to feel for and with non-human animals. It offers new interpretations for how animals and humans observe each other in American scientific culture, uncovering how such a culture distributed agency in complex aesthetic ways.

My next project concerns the aesthetics of infrastructure, including what I'm calling "soft" or alternative infrastructures oriented around equality, care, and sense of place.

I teach place-based interdisciplinary courses in environmental humanities, including environmental literature and science writing classes. Across several departments, my teaching encourages students to see the civic value of the arts, and to advocate for the community application of their research and writing. 

You may be interested in reading my recent article about the visual culture surrounding America’s first natural history museum, or you may want to take a look at syllabi from courses I have taught recently about environmental justice, the Anthropocene, and a writing seminar on contemporary questions about the ethics and aesthetics of attention.