I am a historian of China and the world. As of 2021, I serve as a Faculty Member in History at Fulbright University Vietnam, having previously taught courses at Yale University, Wesley College, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I specialize in the environmental history of the twentieth century, but my research also wades into the history of science and technology and the history of ethnicity.

I am currently writing the manuscript for a book tentatively titled The Rooted State: Plants and Power on the Chinese Frontier that draws connections between agrarian ideology, environmental practice, and ethnic relations along the Chinese frontier during the early twentieth century.  I have begun a second project on the history of climate science. Both of these projects stem from an interest in the relationship between nationalism and material processes in the modern world, particularly as they intersect in everyday life.

I love teaching history and interdisciplinary courses in the humanities. I’ve taught surveys on Modern East Asia and Modern China as well as upper-level seminars on The Environmental History of East Asia, Asian borderlands, and Chinese Revolutions. I also teach a section of Fulbright University Vietnam’s core course Global Humanities and Social Change.