Thank you for visiting my site! I am a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Florida. This March I will defend my dissertation and in May I will graduate.

 

Drawing on political theory and interpretive methods, I adopt an interdisciplinary approach to attend to the challenges and opportunities posed by emerging technologies. My project, AI and the Exercise of Freedom: The Politics of Personal and Planetary Prediction, examines how predictive technologies influence our capacity for self-interpretation and the ramifications they have on political agency.  Focusing especially on the Quantified Self movement and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, I explore the tensions between the control offered by these technologies and the risk they pose to different conceptions of freedom. I also employ conceptions of freedom developed by Charles Taylor and Hannah Arendt in the context of behaviorism—understood respectively as exercises of self-interpretation and political action—to better address the implications of algorithms. Read more about my work here: Research.

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In undergraduate classrooms, I have taught a variety of courses as an instructor of record: Introduction to Political Theory, Great Political Thinkers, American Political Thought, and Digital Rights & Principles in Europe. Currently, I am employed at the Center for Adaptive Innovation, Resilience, Ethics and Science (UF CAIRES), coordinating and instructing its Active Learning Program of experiential education. I am also prepared and eager to teach courses in qualitative methods, international relations, American government, and environmental politics. You can read more about my teaching and access my syllabi/evaluations here: Teaching.

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I grew up on both sides of the Missouri River in Iowa and Nebraska and am a first-generation college student from a supportive working-class family. Before starting my PhD at the University of Florida, I earned degrees from Iowa Western Community College, Richmond the American International University in London, the University of Nebraska Omaha, and the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Research and teaching aside, I enjoy playing recreational sports, collecting books, travelling, and spending time with my family and friends outdoors.