PhD Candidate · Arizona State University
Interdisciplinary Sustainability & Governance Scholar
School of Sustainability, ASU · Tempe, AZ
I study how worldviews shape decision-making across Alaska's landscapes and seascapes — research with implications for climate-resilient governance in the Arctic and beyond.
I am a PhD candidate in Sustainability at Arizona State University, where my work sits at the intersection of governance, human-nature relationships, and climate change in the American Arctic.
My dissertation — Across Worlds: Winter, Worldviews, and the Governance of Alaska's Frozen Commons — investigates how the worldviews held at different levels of decision-making (e.g., communities, state or federal agencies, and Tribal nations) shape the natural resource stewardship actions that affect frozen landscapes in Alaska. At its core, this work asks: when people who understand the world in fundamentally different ways sit at the same table, what happens? And, what are we missing out on if they don't?
I blend qualitative methods (semi-structured interviews, archival document analysis, institutional analysis) with quantitative approaches (semantic network analysis, dynamic modelling, statistical analysis) to produce research that is useful not only to scholars, but to the Indigenous communities and land managers who navigate these governance challenges every day.
Before beginning my PhD, I worked in food security, riparian restoration, and Indigenous water sovereignty — commitments that continue to ground my scholarship in place-based realities.
My doctoral research is structured around three interconnected studies, each examining a different aspect of livelihoods and natural resource stewardship in the Upper Kuskokwim River Region of Alaska — from place-based community stewardship to multi-level government decision-making.
Frozen Commons are interconnected landscapes of ice, snow, and permafrost that are collectively used and governed. This study asks, what frozen commons are identified as being important to livelihoods by members of our partner communities? What institutions (i.e., community rules and norms) guide community interactions with Frozen Commons? How is climate change affecting Frozen Commons and the communities that engage with them? This work is funded by the National Science Foundation: Navigating the New Arctic award number 2127348.
Parameterizing worldviews as a network of tripartite links between elements of frozen commons (e.g., river ice, snowpack, permafrost), values, and sentiments. This study paints a robust picture of the layered relationality community members in the Upper Kuskokwim River Region of Alaska hold around winter. This research is funded by the National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant award number 2413780 ($62,194).
This study zooms out from the community-level focus to ask: What is the scope of regional, state, and federal resource management that happens in the winter in Alaska? How do agency priorities within and across levels align with community perspectives about changing frozen commons? This work is funded by the National Science Foundation: Navigating the New Arctic award number 2127348.
A core goal of my work is to elevate community perspectives. I maintain ongoing relationships with Tribal councils, community partners, and land managers in the Upper Kuskokwim Region — and I design research that community members have explicitly said will help them navigate governance conversations and advocate for their voices in multi-level decision-making.
I work directly with McGrath and Nikolai Village Tribal Councils as co-designers of the research. Community partners guide research questions, co-identify inclusion criteria for interview participants, and are consulted before every major project decision. Research findings will be returned to communities in accessible formats to support their long-term decision-making on their own terms.
As an Alaska Conservation Foundation intern with the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council (2022), I investigated federal and state water conservation law to design a road map toward Indigenous water sovereignty in the Yukon River Basin — bridging legal complexity with Tribal stakeholder knowledge and priorities.
As an AmeriCorps VISTA with the Fairbanks Soil and Water Conservation District (2019-2020), I led foundational design of a farmer training program by connecting grassroots nonprofits to Tribal and university partners around the common goal of reducing local food insecurity — and leading a team of collaborators in securing a $375,213 USDA Community Food Projects grant (award number 2020-33800-33139) to support the program.
As Program Coordinator for Fairbanks Youth for Habitat (2021), I led student groups in designing and implementing riparian restoration projects in critical salmon habitat around Fairbanks, AK — combining hands-on conservation with field-based ecological education for Alaskan youth.
I mentor undergraduate researchers through ASU's Sustainability Undergraduate Research Experience and Research Apprenticeship Program — earning the Excellence in Mentorship Award (2025) for my commitment to supporting emerging researchers.
I present research in public and practitioner-facing venues including the ASU Institute for Social Science Research, the 20th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons, the ASU School of Sustainability Seminar Series, and the Navigating the New Arctic Annual Community Meeting.
"Community partners have indicated that the results of this research will help them engage with governance entities within decision-making contexts."