I am interested in forging connections between the history of biology and American cultural history. In my book project, I examine the link between America's emergence as an economic powerhouse in the late nineteenth century and its concomitant rise to global pre-eminence in dinosaur paleontology. I am particularly interested in how elements from the culture of industrial capitalism spread through the ranks of the scientific community, manifesting itself in the ways that dinosaurs were collected, studied, and displayed to an eager public.

I also have a longstanding interest in foundational debates about evolutionary theory and its relationship to social, political, and economic concerns. For example, I am currently writing an essay that traces how scientists such as Ernst Haeckel, August Weismann, and Oskar Hertwig attempted to reconcile the two great synthetic frameworks of 19th century biology: evolution and the cell theory. Achieving this goal was complicated by the fact that one stressed the way individual cells give up a measure of their autonomy for the good of the whole, whereas the other usually emphasized the salience of competitive over cooperative interactions in the natural world.

Richard B. Salomon Faculty Research Award (2014)

National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (2010)

Harvard Mind Brain Behavior Initiative Grant (2011, 2009, 2008)

Erwin Hiebert Grant in History of Science, Harvard (2011, 2009)

Harvard Graduate School Merit Fellowship (2010)

Charles Warren Center Dissertation Research Grant  (2009)

Robert M. Goelet Award  (2008)

Harvard Mind Brain Behavior Initiative Graduate Student Award (2008)

Harvard Graduate Student Council Summer Research Grant (2008)

Visiting Scholar, Charles Warren Center for American History, Harvard University (2015/16)

Visiting Scholar, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2015/16)

Visiting Research Scholar, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (June 2015)

Marjorie Grene Prize, ISHPSSB (2013)

Postdoctoral Fellowship, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (declined)

Harvard University Certificate for Distinction in Undergraduate Teaching

I teach courses in American History, the History of Capitalism, Environmental History, and the History of Science.

In the fall of 2013, I taught a survey course entitled "Making America Modern, 1877-1930."  In the spring of 2014, I taught a lecture course on the vexed but longstanding relationship between science and capitalism from the early modern period to our own, entitled "Science in the Marketplace." I also taught an undergraduate seminar on the diverse ways that people have sought to represent nature in the language of art, science, and literature, entitled "Nature on Display."

In 2014/15, I will teach "Making America Modern, 1877-1930" as well as "Environmental History" as lecture courses.  I will also teach an undergraduate seminar, "Political Economy: The Intellectual History of Capitalism," and a graduate reading seminar in History of Science / STS, "The Politics of Knowledge."