I study environmental governance and policy. My research investigates how groups make rules for the management of natural resources and how those rules effect environmental, social, and economic change. I am particularly interested in the connection between global environmental change and local action. I study this by focusing on community-based resource management, the role of global politics in shaping local environment and development outcomes, and evaluating the impacts of environmental policies. My research draws from institutional economics, political ecology, and causal inference. I am trained in statistics, GIS, spatial analysis, survey methodology, interview research, and policy content analysis.

Within environmental governance and policy, I contribute to three specific content areas. First, I use causal inference methods to understand trade-offs in centralized and decentralized resource management. Second, I use spatial data and political theory to consider the justice implications of global forest restoration for indigenous people and local communities. And third, I analyze climate vulnerabilities for local populations to provide information about climate-smart, community-driven conservation and development. Assessing the exposure, sensitivity, and capacity to adapt to a changing climate requires localized data. Advances in the availability of spatial, census, and survey data have made the analysis of local climate vulnerability and adaptation options possible.