I am a PhD candidate in City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I am interested in natural resource and food systems planning processes, and their interaction with economic development and equity considerations. I use statistical and qualitative methods, as well as text and social network analysis in my research.

Research Projects

Food Systems Supply Chains

Coastal Communities

Planning for complexity in environmental governance

As the literature documents the negative impacts from conventional agriculture, and the threat of climate change grows, food systems will need to adjust. How do we build sustainable, inclusive, and equitable systems that can achieve adequate scale to be viable "alternatives" to the status quo?

How may coastal communities position themselves going forward for equity and economic development, particularly in light of shifting fisheries, tourism trends, and threats from climate change?

Planning decisions increasingly must incorporate dynamic and evolving expertise(s), information, and community input across multiple spatial and temporal scales.

Current Projects: 

• Scale in alternative food systems supply chain - a national assessment of scale at the firm and industry level over the last decade

• Job quality in alternative food systems: a barrier to progress? 

Current Projects: ​

• Shellfish aquaculture as link environmental planning and opportunity for economic development.

• Coastal adaptation to sea level rise and the future of work

​Current Projects

• Institutional approaches to regional planning for sustainable economic development

• The impact of framing the environment and environmental knowledge on policy making and planning

• The policy challenges of managing hog waste in North Carolina.