Cal State San Bernardino, Jan. 2023

I am an environmental and cultural historian currently based in Southern California. My research focuses on the political ecologies of war and empire in the American tropics between the Wars of 1898 to the First World War. I am particularly interested in tracing the ways that culturally constructed ideas about tropical climates, landscapes, and resources shaped the processes of empire building as much as empire shaped those landscapes.

I received my PhD in 19th century US and environmental history at UC Riverside in 2026, and am currently a lecturer in the history department at California State University, San Bernardino, where I teach courses on US and California history, as well as historical theories and methods. 

Before graduate school I was a touring musician in the Southern California punk scene which links the do-it-yourself ethos that informs my research, writing, and teaching, as well as the social and environmental justice perpsectives of my work.