I am a native of rural Idaho and was shaped by public lands, the people that manage them and the communities that depend on them. These intersecting and sometimes conflicting interests motivate my work.
I approach natural resource issues through the lenses of public policy, public administration and public finance using qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, spatial analysis and modeling, cartography, and data visualization.
Go Vandals!
current projects
State actors as change agents: Exploring the role of agency, discretion and institutional work in collaborative governance of public lands
Collaborative public participation processes have been a hallmark of many public lands policies enacted over the last two decades, but a combination of cultural, structural and bureaucratic challenges have limited its wide-spread adoption and implementation. Less understood is how and why front-line workers overcome these challenges and actively build and promote new ways of doing business in support of collaborative governance. This project uses the lens of institutional work to state actors use of agency to create, transform and disrupt institutionsons.