Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs with a joint appointment in the Community and Regional Planning program in the School of Architecture. My research programs operate at the intersection of social and environmental science, addressing local and global sustainability challenges that require interdisciplinary research. My research group, Sustainability Science, Policy, and Governance, uses mixed-method analytical approaches to investigate complex human-environment dynamics, revealing values, motivations, social structures, networks, and institutional logics that purely technical or natural science approaches often overlook in addressing sustainability challenges. I supervise both masters and PhD students.

Our research – published across environmental sciences, ecology, water resources, public administration and sociology – addresses topics from flood and heat resilience strategies for vulnerable urban communities to governance mechanisms for economically and ecologically productive landscapes.

We work across diverse regional landscapes in the United States and Kenya, while maintaining active community-engaged research projects in Austin. I’m currently a co-chair for Planet Texas 2050 and I co-lead one of the Flagship Projects. Our research is funded by the National Science Foundation, NASA, Texas Water Development Board, US Fish and Wildlife Service among others.