EMPLOYMENT

Academic editor and writing coach, 2016–present.

Postdoctoral Fellow in Environmental Humanities, Department of English, UCLA, 2014–2016.

Writing Center instructor, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2009–2011, 2012–2014. Assistant director of the Writing Center for 2013–2014.

EDUCATION

Ph.D. in English, Literary Studies, minor in U.S. history, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2014. 

M.A. in English, Literary Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2007.

B.A. in Religious Studies, magna cum laude, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, 2002.

PUBLICATIONS

PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES 

“Towards an Ecopoetics of Food: Plants, Agricultural Politics, and Colonized Landscapes in Lorine Niedecker’s Condensery.” Modernism/modernity 25 (January 2018): 135–60.

“Browning’s Critique of Organic Form in The Ring and the Book.” Victorian Poetry 52.3 (Fall 2014): 445-464.

“Rethinking Organic Metaphors in Poetry and Ecology: Rhizomes and Detritus Words in Oni Buchanan’s ‘Mandrake Vehicles.’” Journal of Modern Literature 35.1 (Fall 2011): 99-121.

CO-EDITED BOOKS 

Bending the Curve: Climate Change Solutions. Editor: V. Ramanathan. Co-Editors: Adam Millard-Ball; Michelle Niemann; Scott Friese. Published by the Regents of the University of California, 2019.

The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities, edited by Ursula K. Heise, Jon Christensen, and Michelle Niemann. London: Routledge, 2017.

ONLINE ESSAYS AND BOOK CHAPTERS

“Composting’s Colonial Roots and Microbial Offshoots,” in Edge Effects, April 6, 2020.

“Organic Farming’s Political History,” in Edge Effects, January 23, 2020.

“Playing in the Planetary Field: Vulnerability and Syncretic Myth-Making in Robert Duncan’s Ecopoetics,” in Ecopoetics: Essays in the Field, edited by Angela Hume and Gillian Osborne. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2018. 84–101.

“Hubris and Humility in Environmental Thought,” in The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities, edited by Ursula K. Heise, Jon Christensen, and Michelle Niemann. London: Routledge, 2017. 247–257.

Co-author with Ursula K. Heise and Jon Christensen, “What is the environmental humanities?” September 2014.

“The Importance of Being Interested,” post on the UW-Madison Writing Center’s blog, Another Word, December 9, 2013.

“Posthuman Revisions of Organic Form in Poetry.” eTopia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies. Selected papers from The Inhuman: Investigating Continental Thought in the Humanities. York University, 12 March 2010. Web.

“‘Not borne of women’: The Gendering of Space and Place in Thomas Hariot’s A briefe and true report and Paul Green’s The Lost Colony.” On and Off the Page: Mapping Place in Text and Culture, edited by Matthew B. Hackler and Ari J. Adipurwawidjana. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars, 2009. 269–292.

Co-author of “Learning to Do Historical Research: A Primer for Environmental Historians and Others,” a website written by William Cronon’s Graduate Seminar in Environmental History, Fall 2008: http://www.williamcronon.net/researching/index.htm

FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS

Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature’s David D. Anderson Award for Outstanding Essay in Midwestern Literary Studies, honorable mention for “Towards an Ecopoetics of Food: Plants, Agricultural Politics, and Colonized Landscapes in Lorine Niedecker’s Condensery,” 2019.

Affordable Course Materials Award, UCLA Library, 2015.

Postdoctoral Fellowship, Mellon Sawyer Seminar on the Environmental Humanities, UCLA, 2014-2015.

Mellon-Wisconsin Summer Dissertation Fellowship, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2013.

Fellowship to attend Futures of American Studies Institute at Dartmouth College, English Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison, summer 2013.

Sally Mead Hands Summer Dissertator Fellowship, English Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2012.

Dissertation Fellowship, Mellon Sawyer Seminar on Biopolitics, Center for the Humanities, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2011-2012.

Chair’s Doctoral Essay Prize, English Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2009.

PRESENTATIONS

NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES

“A Compost-Based Ecopoetics?” Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment Conference. University of California, Davis. June 2019.

“Food, Pleasure, and Environmental Justice in Kevin Young’s Poetry.” American Comparative Literature Association Annual Meeting. Los Angeles, California. March 2018.

“Envisioning the Future, Turning Toward the Present.” Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment Eleventh Biennial Conference. Moscow, Idaho. June 2015.

“An Ecopoetics in Organic Form? Organisms and Urns in Modernist Poetry and the New Criticism.” American Comparative Literature Association Annual Meeting. Seattle, Washington. March 2015.

“Sustainable Farming and the Poetics of Food: Lorine Niedecker and Wendell Berry.” American Studies Association Annual Meeting. Washington, DC. November 2013.

“Organic Forms and Organic Farms: Literary Politics, Food Politics, and the Local.” Futures of American Studies Institute, Dartmouth College. Hanover, New Hampshire. June 2013.

“Organic Forms and Organic Farms: Compost in Wendell Berry’s Poetry and Prose.” Association for the Study of Literature and Environment Tenth Biennial Conference. Lawrence, Kansas. May 2013.

“Muriel Rukeyser’s Poetics and Politics in the 1940s and 50s.” The Muriel Rukeyser Centenary Symposium. Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti. March 2013.

“Concrete and Organic: Ronald Johnson’s Poems and Cookbooks.” Conference on Ecopoetics. University of California, Berkeley. February 2013.

“Opening Up Organic Form: Charles Olson’s Poetics and Politics at Black Mountain.” American Literature Association Conference. San Francisco, California. May 2012.

“Web Metaphors, Web Forms: Ecology, the Internet, and Oni Buchanan’s ‘Mandrake Vehicles.’” Pre-conference seminar on Ecological Media. Association for the Study of Literature and Environment Eighth Biennial Conference. Victoria, British Columbia. June 2009.

“The Aesthetics of Decomposition: Ruin as Renewal in Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us.” Annual Convention of the Modern Language Association. San Francisco, California. December 2008.

“Redemption through Matter: Death and Organic Transformation in Frank Bidart’s Long Poems.” Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association. Long Beach, California. April 2008.

REGIONAL CONFERENCES, INTRAMURAL TALKS, AND GRADUATE STUDENT CONFERENCES

“Food Politics in Lorine Niedecker’s ‘New Goose’ Poems.” The Lorine Niedecker Wisconsin Poetry Festival. Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. October 2013.

“What’s farming got to do with poetry?” Invited talk. FH King Students for Sustainable Agriculture. University of Wisconsin-Madison. October 2012.

“Organic Forms and Ecology: Poetry, Alternative Agriculture, and the Changing Concept of the Organic in the Postwar U.S.” Center for Culture, History, and Environment Colloquium. University of Wisconsin-Madison. November 2011.

“The Ecological Implications of Organic Form in Poetry.” Center for Culture, History, and Environment. Second Annual Graduate Student Symposium. University of Wisconsin-Madison. April 2009.

“Posthuman Revisions of Organic Form in Poetry.” The Inhuman: Investigating Continental Thought in the Humanities. Graduate Student Conference, York University, Toronto, Ontario. October 2008.

“‘Not borne of women’: The Gendering of Space and Place in Thomas Hariot’s A briefe and true report and Paul Green’s The Lost Colony.” The Louisiana Conference on Language and Literature. University of Louisiana at Lafayette. February 2008.

“‘Remember Iphigenia’: H.D.’s Helen in Egypt as a Reversal of Aeschylus’s Oresteia.” MadLit: Graduate Student Conference on Language and Literature. University of Wisconsin-Madison. February 2007.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

LECTURER AT UCLA

Introduction to Environmental Humanities, general education course cross-listed in English and Environmental Studies, Fall 2015.

WRITING CENTER LEADERSHIP AND TUTORING

TA Assistant Director of the Writing Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2013-2014.

Instructor, Writing Center at University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2009-2011, 2012-2014.

Tutor, Writing Center at Indiana University-Purdue University, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 2003-2004.

INSTRUCTOR OF RECORD FOR COMPOSITION COURSES AT UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

Media, Rhetoric, and Composition: Digital First-Year Composition, Fall 2010.

Food Choices and the Art of Persuasion: First-Year Composition, Spring 2009.

Space and Place: First-Year Composition, Fall 2008.

TEACHING ASSISTANT FOR LITERATURE COURSES AT UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

Introduction to Modern American Literature: Violence and the American Psyche, introductory literature course with emphasis on composition, Professor Lynn Keller, Spring 2011.

Revolution: Literature and Revolt, 1776-2006, sophomore survey of American literature for English majors, Professor Russ Castronovo, Spring 2010.

British and Anglophone Literature, 1750 to the present, sophomore survey for English majors, Lecturer Jonathan Ewell, Fall 2009.

Introduction to Modern Literature since 1900, Lecturer Holly McBee, Spring 2008.

Misfits and Mass Culture: Introduction to Modern American Literature, Professor David Zimmerman, Fall 2007.

SERVICE

Co-organizer, Mellon Sawyer Seminar on the Environmental Humanities, UCLA, 2014-2015.

Organizer and facilitator, interdisciplinary Environmental Humanities Reading Group, UCLA, 2014-2015.

Organizer, “States of Nature” seminar. Mellon Sawyer Seminar on Biopolitics, Center for the Humanities University of Wisconsin-Madison, October 2012.

Organizer, field trip, “Environmental Literature and Writing at the UW Arboretum,” American Society for Environmental History Conference. Madison, Wisconsin, March 2012.

Graduate Representative, Center for Culture, History and Environment Steering Committee, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2011-2012

Co-organizer of DIRT: the environmentalist reading group, English Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2010-2013.

Secretary for Center for Culture, History, and Environment grads group, 2010-2011.

Graduate Student Associate, Center for Culture, History, and Environment, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2008-2014. 

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment.

Modernist Studies Association.

American Comparative Literature Association.