ABOUT ME

I am a qualitative sociologist and Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

My research explores crucial dilemmas surrounding climate change adaptation and conceptualizes frameworks that promote climate justice and critical resilience. I focus on questions of uneven development and infrastructural inequality, attending to the social and historical factors that have shaped vulnerability and have contributed to disparities in efforts to adapt to climate change.

My first book, In the Shadow of the Seawall, was recently published by the University of California Press. The book advances placekeeping as a new concept for understanding climate adaptation, turning attention to grounded struggles to keep place where it is.

I have also published academic research in the areas of climate justice studies, critical resilience studies, and disaster studies. In addition to my scholarly work, I engage in public sociology and cinematic sociology, including the Carsey-Wolf Center’s Coastal Media Project, to expand the way stories about the environment are told.