As an environmental anthropologist, my research involves investigating the myriad ways that humans conceptualize and transform our environment and in turn, how our environment affects our beliefs and behavior. I received my PhD in Anthropology from the Program in Ecological and Environmental Anthropology at the University of Georgia. In my current position as a visiting lecturer in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change, I teach Food and Culture, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, and Social Anthropology. I am currently developing a course Ecological and Environmental Anthropology that will focus on human environment interactions both past and present.

Research Interests: 

Dynamics of culture change, cultural foodways, ethnobiology and ethnoecology, environmental perceptions, cognition, and learning, conservation and sustainability, anthropological research methods (quantitative and qualitative), United States (southwest), and Latin America (Costa Rica and Mexico).

.As an applied anthropologist my work intersects with global issues including the environment, health, and immigration. I seek to draw connections between these issues and investigate how they intersect at the local level. For example, I am interested in how immigration affects cultural and environmental knowledge especially of traditional and wild foods and how this loss of knowledge in turn may have negative effects on childhood obesity. I am also investigating children's diminishing interaction with the natural environment and the particular effects that this can have on their learning about nature and health and wellness.

Current Research:

Anthropologists have a growing interest in the loss of local, environmental knowledge in younger generations. This phenomenon is occurring simultaneously around the world and researchers are shifting their focus from describing local knowledge systems to explaining how these systems work, including how knowledge is learned, transmitted, transformed, and shaped by global influences.

My research has been supported by the Canon National Parks Science Scholars Program , National Science Foundation, and in-kind contributions from Native Seed Search. My dissertation focused on how humans understand the natural environment; how they name, recognize, and utilize plants and animals, and how this information is learned and then taught to others. Through this work, I have assisted the National Park Service and the Ajo Unified School District with developing more culturally-based, in situ science education materials for local communities bordering the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. The purpose is that by educating children about human's interdependence on plants and animals, they will understand the importance of conservation and sustainable practices.