Image courtesy of Barron Bixler

Information for prospective students and postdoctoral scholars

I am on the faculty at Princeton University, where I hold a joint appointment in the Effron Center for the Study of American and the High Meadows Environmental Institute. This website provides information about my research, creative practice and collaborative work. To learn about the work of the lab I direct at Princeton, please see the Blue Lab website.

For prospective graduate students who are applying to a program at Princeton, I advise in the fields of environmental humanities, science and technology studies (STS), American studies and food studies with a focus on mentoring dissertation research that examines the cultural and scientific dimensions of contemporary environmental issues (including climate change and climate justice) and/or addresses the role of storytelling, creative practice and imagination in addressing lived experiences of large-scale ecological and planetary problems. If your interests overlap with these advising areas, you are welcome to list me in your application materials as a potential faculty mentor. For prospective postdoctoral researchers, if your research and professional interests are connected to my current scholarship or to the projects of Blue Lab, please email me with inquiries about serving as a mentor / PI.

For current students and postdoctoral researchers at Princeton interested in working with me or Blue Lab, please email me to arrange an initial meeting. I occasionally serve as an outside member of dissertation committees and welcome inquiries from graduate students at other universities.

Dissertation Committees: Director
  • Spencer Robins, PhD Candidate in English, UCLA
  • Shouhei Tanaka, PhD Candidate in English, UCLA
  • Chelsea Oei Kern, PhD in English, UCLA, Awarded 2021 | "Digital Reading Practices and the Contemporary U.S. Novel"
  • Alexei Nowak, PhD in Comparative Literature, UCLA , Awarded 2018 | “Rural transnationalism: Food, famine, and agriculture in U.S. and Chinese Literature, 1989-1955”
  • Allison Hegel, PhD in English, UCLA, Awarded 2018 | “Social reading in the digital age”
  • Amanda Waldo, PhD in English, UCLA, Awarded 2015 | “The ethical consumer: Narratives of social and environmental change in contemporary American literature”
  • Christopher McGill, PhD in English, University of Oregon, Awarded 2012 | “Figuring the beast: The aesthetics of animality in American literature, 1900-1979"
Dissertation Committees: Reader
  • Clara Wilch, PhD Candidate in Theater and Performance Studies, UCLA
  • Gregory Toy, PhD in English, UCLA, Awarded 2021
  • Comfort Udah, PhD in English, UCLA, Awarded 2021
  • Sujin Youn, PhD in English, UCLA, Awarded 2020
  • Elizabeth Collins, PhD in French and Francophone Studies, UCLA, Awarded 2020
  • Kathryn Cai, PhD in English, UCLA, Awarded 2019
  • Cailey Hall, PhD in English, UCLA, Awarded 2019
  • Camille Frazier, PhD in Anthropology, UCLA, Awarded 2018
  • Stephen Siperstein, PhD in English and Environmental Studies, University of Oregon, Awarded 2016
  • Lindsay Naylor, PhD in Cultural Geography, University of Oregon, Awarded 2014
  • Allison Schifani, PhD in Comparative Literature, UC Santa Barbara, Awarded 2013
  • Sarah Stoeckl, PhD in English, University of Oregon, Awarded 2012