I am an economic geographer, researcher and writer. Much of my research has focused on worker co-operatives, however, I am interested in co-operative and other community economies broadly speaking.

As a graduate student at the University of Denver, I read The End of Capitalism (as we knew it), which, inspired me to move to Western MA to work with Julie Graham in 2005. I conducted doctoral research with the Valley Alliance of Worker Co-operatives and earned a PhD in 2011. I went into academia with a strong desire to learn and teach for the rest of my life. Thanks to a vibrant community of collaborators, I gained a deep knowledge of co-operatives and fell in love with the research process. This experience has shaped my livelihood and fueled the desire to conduct research and document stories of and in the co-operative movement.

I have taught courses in human and economic geography at the University of Massachusetts and Worcester State University (WSU) where was a visiting Assistant Professor in the fall of 2011. I will be teaching Human Geography at WSU again this fall. I have also co-developed curriculum with the University of Massachusetts Co-operative Enterprise Collaborative. That experience informs a key goal of mine in the future, which is co-developing an interdisciplinary curriculum on co-operatives and co-opreneurship in a local University’s department of business management.

I am a member of the Community Economies Collective (CEC), an international collaboration of  academic and community researchers and activists in Australia, North America, Europe and Middle East. Participants in this group have an affinity with the work of JK Gibson-Graham and the goal of theorizing, discussing, representing and ultimately enacting new visions of the economy. I will join 21 Community Economies Scholars at the Convento S. Maria del Giglio for a writing retreat in Bolsena, Italy during the first two weeks of July.

I grew up mostly in the post industrial city of Rochester NY. I have lived in Fl, NYC, ILL, AK, AZ and CO as well as Guatemala and Mexico but Easthampton, MA is the sweet spot I consider home. I practice yoga regularly and occasionally teach yoga classes.

Click here for my Academic CV or here for my Resume. For links to selected works click here.