As an environmental social scientist, my work is interdisciplinary and informed by theories and concepts drawn from political ecology, geography, rural and environmental sociology, and settler-colonial studies.

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I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia's Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES). In the LEAP lab, I support the multi-institutional Transforming Chemical Risk Management with Indigenous Expertise project, with a focus on re-imagining approaches to environmental risk, policy, and governance by centering Inuit knowledge and experience.

 

My previous community-engaged research has included:

• Collaborating with the agroecology network Rede Ecovida to investigate how policies, practices, and agrarian movement politics have contributed to scaling agroecology in Brazil, from local to national levels

• Co-developing a participatory action research (PAR) project with farming organizations across Latin America to measure and monitor indicators of agroecology

• Exploring how Indigenous-led conservation initiatives (such as Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas, or IPCAs) can advance Indigenous food sovereignty, in support of the Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty and the IISAAK OLAM Foundation​

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I completed my PhD at IRES, where I was a Vanier Scholar and UBC Public Scholar. My doctoral research investigated the spatial distribution of agroecological indicators in Brazil; participation in agroecology and land-based movements and the relationship between these movements and the state; and the contributions of agroecology to rural peoples' well-being.

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I graduated from Penn State University’s Schreyer Honors College with dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Environmental Resource Management and Community, Environment, and Development, and dual minors in International Agriculture and Watersheds and Water Resources. Following this, I was granted a US-UK Fulbright award to attend Newcastle University, where I completed an MPhil in Geography.

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In my free time, I love to hike, cycle, and cook, and I also have an independent consulting practice. As a settler of German, British, Dutch, and Polish descent who lives and works on/with – and benefits from – xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, səl̓ílwətaʔɬ, and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh lands (Vancouver, BC), I'm committed to working in solidarity with communities organizing for land and climate justice.