I have 13 years of experience researching the human dimensions of U.S. agriculture.

I conduct research to understand the drivers of agrarian change. When do agricultural systems transition into something new, and when do they persist as they are? These questions are rooted in longstanding debates about the relationships between agriculture and industry, countries and cities, the rural and the urban. They are also increasingly urgent as climate change continues to imperil global food production.
Focusing on the social worlds of farming helps me establish effective strategies for building equitable and resilient agricultural systems. Grounded in cultural anthropology’s comparative analytic tradition and ethnographic methods, my most recent scholarship applies these approaches to interdisciplinary environmental projects. I describe three themes around which my research agenda coheres below.

Post-industrial agrarian change: Iowa is the country’s leading producer of corn, soybeans, and hogs, yet its agricultural landscapes produce more than export-oriented commodities. Small-scale, alternative farms are emerging alongside Iowa’s fields of grain. My current book project is an ethnography investigating the connections between industrial and alternative agriculture in Iowa. The book examines the intersections between Iowa’s ostensibly distinct systems of agricultural production to understand how overlapping rural social worlds create new approaches to farming. I analyze the resulting tensions and opportunities as windows into broader post-industrial transition pathways.

Supportive contexts for sustainable food systems: A through line of my research is understanding how agriculture’s human worlds impact production. Agriculture is always embedded within complex social systems; along with soil, weather, and production practices, these contexts shape farms’ trajectories and effects. I use many lenses to examine how personal relationships, social policies, and regional histories facilitate or hinder sustainable agricultural processes. These include a partnership with the National Farm Medicine Center to understand how farmers' access to childcare impacts production, a USDA NCR SARE funded project on the factors leading some beginning farmers to quit, and, at The Ohio State University, a statewide survey of Ohio farm businesses exploring how organic and conventional farms responded to the climate and market stresses of 2019.

 Transitions to resilient agro-futures: Most recently, as a member of the FACES Lab at Emory University's Department of Environmental Sciences, I am working on a team that is developing a cross-regional, participatory research project focused on uniting “big” geospatial data with “deep” qualitative data to refine projections of future U.S. agricultural landscapes and identify pathways towards more desirable geographies, as defined by diverse stakeholders.