I study the industrialization of mining and sugar and their environmental and policy consequences for communities and landscapes. In 2014 I completed a book on my work in Hawai`i titled Sovereign Sugar: Industry and Environment in Hawai`i (University of Hawai`i Press, 2014). I'm continuing my work in Hawai`i with writing on the militarization of Hawaiian lands and waters, focusing on Pearl Harbor.

After several years of research on mining policy in the US, I'm working on a project in the Lake Superior basin that examines the historic production of mine waste, new mine developments, and the adequacy of state and federal policies in the US and Canada. I currently have a funded project with faculty in environmental engineering to document the historic mine production of copper and PCB waste in a nearby Superfund site at Torch Lake. I'm also working with the Keweenaw Land Trust to develop a cultural landscape study and interpretive program for one of their preserves with a mining and agricultural heritage. I am especially interested in working with students with interests in mining and mining policy in the Great Lakes and the Canadian north.

I teach graduate seminars in the Environmental & Energy Policy and the Industrial Heritage Programs. My undergraduate teaching is devoted to the Anthropology major, focusing on environment, methods, the Pacific, and the circumpolar north.