About

A Personal Look

I come to my work through a life shaped by service, curiosity, and a deep interest in how people, systems, and places interact under pressure. Before entering doctoral study, I served in the United States Coast Guard and spent more than a decade in operational planning and communications. Earlier in life, I also volunteered as a wildland firefighter and EMT. Those experiences gave me a practical understanding of crisis, preparedness, and the reality that communities do not experience disruption in neat or temporary ways. They also taught me to think clearly, adapt quickly, and pay attention to the gap between how systems are designed and how people actually live within them.

Personally, I am grounded by the parts of life that keep me connected to meaning beyond work. I love my dogs, care deeply for my aquatic animals, and value the sense of responsibility and steadiness that comes with caring for living things. I also love travel and the perspective it brings. Experiencing different places has continually reinforced my belief that communities hold knowledge, identity, and solutions that are often overlooked by formal systems. Those experiences have shaped the way I see the world: with curiosity, respect, and a strong awareness that place matters.

At the center of who I am is a practical, bridge-building mindset. I see myself as a systems analyst with a pragmatic orientation, someone interested not only in ideas, but in how to make them useful. My work is driven by the belief that stronger connections are needed between academics and researchers, practitioners, and the communities most affected by policy and disruption. I am especially interested in helping translate between those worlds in ways that are thoughtful, grounded, and actionable.

Whether in research, professional work, or everyday life, I am drawn to work that is purposeful, people-centered, and honest about complexity. I care about building better systems, but I care just as much about making sure those systems remain connected to the real lives they are meant to serve.

Dissertation Outlook

My dissertation is developing around sustainable recovery in hazard-affected communities, with increasing attention to how governance systems, land use, biodiversity, and social infrastructure interact across time. Rather than approaching recovery as a short-term return to baseline, I am interested in what makes recovery more adaptive, equitable, and capable of reducing future risk.

My current thinking is especially oriented toward fire-prone landscapes, with California serving as an important context for exploring these dynamics. Within that frame, I am examining how wildland-urban interface development, environmental pressures, and institutional decision-making shape both ecological and community outcomes.

Although the project is still evolving, it is grounded in a systems perspective that asks how recovery can support not only rebuilt environments, but healthier relationships between people, policy, and place. At its core, the dissertation is driven by a broader interest in how research, governance, and community knowledge can be brought into stronger conversation to support more sustainable futures.

Longer Term Research Goals

My long-term research goals are grounded in a systems-oriented approach to disaster, recovery, and environmental change. As a systems analyst, I am interested in understanding how governance, policy, social infrastructure, and ecological pressures interact over time, and how those interactions shape whether communities remain vulnerable or move toward more sustainable futures.

While my current work is centered on fire-prone landscapes, I hope to expand this research across a wider range of disasters and disruptions, including both natural and human-made events. Over time, I want to build a broader body of work that examines how systems function across contexts and how they can be reshaped to support more adaptive, equitable, and durable outcomes.

A central part of my long-term goal is to conduct research that is not only rigorous, but also accessible and useful beyond academic spaces. I want my work to be something communities, practitioners, and decision-makers can engage with, understand, and apply in meaningful ways. For me, research should do more than explain problems; it should help people see purpose, possibilities for action, and clearer paths forward.