About Me

Born and raised in farm country in rural Western New York State, I attended Syracuse University for my undergraduate education (BA in Political Science, Mathematics, Economics; BS in Television/Radio/Film), the University of Chicago for my Master's (MA in Social Sciences) and UCLA for my Doctorate (Ph.D in Political Science). Through this journey, I gained an appreciation for the value of bringing together and learning from disparate disciplines, traditions, and experiences when contending with key political and theoretical problem spaces.

One of the many joys of my graduate and postdoctoral work is how it has extended this physical travel and intellectual wanderlust to academic conferences, community events, and cultural festivals across the continental United States and the Pacific, including in Hawaiʻi, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Kūki 'Airani/Cook Islands, and Tokyo – locations in which the photos featured on this webpage were taken. Conversing with activists, cultural practitioners, and scholars in these spaces (and in the communities hosting these events) has been crucial to the development of the political affect and conviction that animate my research and teaching. 

My travel experiences reflect a broader desire to build community as part of my work and life. While a graduate student at UCLA, I worked closely with mentors and colleagues to facilitate departmental life, including with a long-term stint as the student coordinator for UCLA's Political Theory Workshop. When the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic threatened to isolate new graduate students from senior cohorts who would otherwise provide guidance, sociality, and instruction in the "hidden curriculum" of academia, I organized virtual student readings groups centered on recent publications in political theory, as well as a "conversation series" that invited the authors of many of these readings to discuss their work and the publication process via Zoom. The relationships and student community built in part through these events culminated in the UCLA Graduate Conference in Political Theory in 2021 and 2022, for which I served as founder and chair of the organizing committee. These two-day events virtually convened faculty keynote speakers with graduate students from five continents to share works-in-progress on a common theme. 

When not working, I enjoy 90s' and early aughts' sitcoms, video games (forming the basis for a popular undergraduate class I taught at UCLA), hiking, and showing my fiancé pictures of cute dogs I found online.