CURRENT Research Projects
My research focuses on the histories of the environment, sciences, art, and architecture. I am deeply committed to interdisciplinary, collaborative, and community engaged scholarship that bridges our understandings of our pasts with our contemporary experiences.
I am currently writing A History of the Anthropocene, a deep history of human-nature relations. I lead the collaborative project, Rivers of the Anthropocene (RoA), which brings together scientists, humanists, policy makers, and communities to study global water systems. Through my work as RoA Director, I direct the Museum of the Anthropocene Project and the Memory, Place, and Community in Global Water Systems Working Group of the Sustainable Future Water Programme, a project of Future Earth. Likewise, I co-direct The Anthropocene Household and the Voices from the Waterways Projects.
As Director of the IUPUI Arts & Humanities Institute, I lead The Cultural Ecologies Project, a research program and PhD track that works with community stakeholders to study and design cultural interventions across multiple scales — from the personal to the neighborhood to the city level.