Welcome! I am an Associate Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs with a joint appointment in the Community and Regional Planning program in the School of Architecture. As an environmental social scientist, my research operates 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 approaches to investigate complex human-environment dynamics, revealing the values, social structures, networks, and institutional logics that purely technical approaches often overlook. I supervise both masters and PhD students.

Our work spans four areas: network governance and environmental management, urban climate and multi-hazard modeling, social vulnerability and adaptive capacity, and international water security. Published across environmental sciences, ecology, water resources, public administration, and sociology, it addresses topics from flood and heat resilience for vulnerable urban communities to governance mechanisms for ecologically productive landscapes. This research has directly informed policy — including the Texas Water Development Board’s adoption of our Texas Flood-specific Social Vulnerability Index for state flood planning.

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