My research has been supported by grants and awards from several foundations and institutions including the Fulbright US Scholar Program, the Beinecke Library at Yale, the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Library of Congress, and the Huntington Library. Before joining USD’s faculty I taught at Miami University (2014-2026) and Texas Tech University (2009-2014). I received my B.A. in English from Boston University and my Ph.D. in Literature from UC Irvine (2009).
I am an Associate Professor of English at the University of San Diego (beginning in fall 2026) where I teach courses in American literature to 1900 and environmental humanities. My books include Coral Lives: Literature, Labor, and the Making of America (Princeton University Press, 2023) and Liquid Landscape: Geography and Settlement at the Edge of Early America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), which won two book awards from the Florida Historical Society. Presently I am at work on a new book about the ecologist Rachel Carson. Tentatively titled Rachel Carson Reading, it makes the case for literary study at a time of climate crisis.
