I’m an anthropologist and geographer who is committed to rigorous and critical ethnographic research and community collaboration. My current project is focused on how diaspora businesspeople from the Horn of Africa think about climate change as they pursue transnational investment across the US-Africa connection.

Since 2015, I have also been conducting research on the intersections between cross-border smuggling and diaspora investment in the Ethiopia-Somalia border regions, especially in the city of Jigjiga, Ethiopia. I am presently revising a manuscript based on this research. Other results from the project can be found on my scholarship page. I’m also intensely interested in histories of identity formation and political mobilization in African borderlands, and have published several articles on the topic.

Aside from my research and teaching at UC Merced, I’m an avid surfer and backpacker and I spend as much time as possible in the ocean or mountains of northern California.