I am currently Associate Professor of Regional + City Planning at the University of Oklahoma Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture where I teach food systems planning, geographic information systems, participatory planning methods, site planning, and urban design theory.

My research focuses on environmental and social influences of neighborhood well being as well as land use policies that aim to improve community health. I use spatial modeling and analysis of the built and affective environment as a means understanding how communities come to support public policies that are environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable. 

I recently participated in the North East Oklahoma City Food Security Symposium sponsored by ULI Oklahoma. A video recording of the conversation with one of my mentors Dr. LaVonna Blair Lewis of USC, food justice colleague Dr. Ashanté Reese of the University of Maryland, and Councilwoman Nikki Nice can accessed by clicking on the banner below.

I have a new chapter out with Dr. Lisa Schweitzer titled “Justice and Urban Design” in The New Companion to Urban Design, edited by my mentor Tridib Banerjee of USC and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris of UCLA.

You can hear more about my most recent work exploring the nutritional environments of Oklahoma on a podcast I did on Just Sow: The Future of Food.

My work appears in the American Journal of Public Health, the Journal of the American Planning Association, the Journal of Planning History, the Interdisciplinary Journal of Wayfinding and Signage, and Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design.

I hold a Ph.D. in spatial planning from the University of Southern California Sol Price School of Public Policy, a master’s degree in landscape architecture from California State Polytechnic University College of Environmental Design, a master’s degree in environmental behavior from the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability, and a bachelors’ degree in economics and environmental studies from the University of Southern California.