My scholarship focuses on the histories of the environment, sciences, art, and architecture. I am deeply committed to interdisciplinary, collaborative, and community engaged scholarship that bridges our understandings of our pasts with our contemporary experiences. 

I am currently writing A History of the Anthropocene, a deep history of human-nature relations. In the process of developing this manuscript, I have been writing a series of essays on the Anthropocene during the long eighteenth century. These include essays on “Anthropocenic consciousness,” the maritime history of the Anthropocene, and the “Anthropocene family.”

As part of my research collaborations, I lead The Anthropocenes Network, an international, transdisciplinary, collaborative network committed to developing innovative interventions in environmental research, pedagogy, and policy. The Anthropocenes Network has been home to several projects including 1) Rivers of the Anthropocene, a research project focused on global freshwater systems and policy; 2) Voices from the Waterways, an oral history project; 3) The Anthropocene Household, a community-based research project that uses the household as a way to understand the lived experiences, knowledges, and practices associated with environmental change; and 4) Museum of the Anthropocene, an experimental platform to develop multi-sited, synchronous, interactive, networked environmental installations.

As the Director of the IU Indianapolis Arts and Humanities Institute, I direct The Cultural Ecologies Project, a research program and PhD track that works with community stakeholders to study and design cultural interventions across multiple scales — from the personal to the neighborhood to the city level.

To see my previous projects and research outputs, visit my research dashboard, which summarizes how my research projects have developed over time.

Research Dashboard