EDUCATION
New School for Social Research
PhD, Politics May 2024
Dissertation: Where do Social Movements Matter?
Charting the Outcomes of the U.S. Movement Against Nuclear Energy
Committee Chair: Professor David Plotke
Major Field: Comparative Politics
Minor Field: American Politics
University of California, Santa Cruz
Bachelor of Arts, Politics June 2001
College Honors
Honors in the Major
ACADEMIC AWARDS AND SCHOLARSHIPS
New School University Dean’s Fellowship
University of California, Santa Cruz Regents Fellowship
Consolidated Tribal Council Scholarship (Merit Based grant)
National Merit Scholar
CONFERENCES
APSA Conference Paper: “Innovative Responses to Social Movements” Philadelphia 2024
MPSA Conference Paper: “The Politics Social Movements Make: Innovation as a Response to Disruptive Movements” Chicago/Hybrid, April 2024
Issues and Perspectives in the Study of Social Movement Impacts Workshop: Paper “Where do Movements Matter? Mapping Convergent and Divergent Causal Processes” Geneva, June 2022
MPSA Conference Paper: “Dissecting Institutional Disruption: How Anti-Nuclear Energy Activists Interrupted the Atomic Energy Commission, and How it Matters”
Chicago/Hybrid, April 2022
DISSERTATION
My dissertation demonstrates how social movements reshape power dynamics when they disrupt existing arrangements. Drawing upon archives of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and anti-nuclear energy activists, I trace the process of the resettlement of the nuclear energy field after the disruption of licensing and the controversy over emergency cooling systems. The resulting field reflects new constraints on previously dominant groups, while admitting new actors. The outcome is neither a clear win nor a loss for the antinuclear activists, but changes the sites, pathways, and grounds of subsequent contention. I operationalize these findings to theorize how power is redistributed after contention, and to link this to changing resource distribution and valuation.
WORK IN PROGRESS
“Innovations in the Field: Actor Responses to Disruptive Social Movements”
Article manuscript under review with Theory and Society
Where do Social Movements Matter?
Book manuscript in preparation
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Instructor
St. John’s University
Spring 2025, GOV 1610 Introduction to International Relations (Government and Politics)
Designed course, prepared materials and evaluated students’ work on theories of international relations, history, international political economy, global governance, global geography and questions of law, rights, humanitarian concerns, environmental politics, global hunger, and war.
Instructor
Fordham University
Fall 2024, POSC 1100 Introduction to Politics
Designed course, prepared materials, instructed and evaluated students on the fundamentals of the academic study of politics, including theories of power, modes of participation, familiar political institutions and organization of political communities.
Instructor
St. John’s University
Fall 2024, GOV 1700 Comparative Political Systems (Government and Politics)
Designed course, prepared materials, taught hybrid in-person and asynchronously and evaluated students’ work on comparative politics methodologies, history, diverse governing arrangements, global geography and questions of scope and scale of political systems.
Instructor
St. John’s University
Spring 2023, GOV 1610 Introduction to International Relations (Government and Politics)
Designed course, prepared materials and evaluated students’ work on theories of international relations, history, international political economy, global governance, global geography and questions of law, rights, humanitarian concerns, environmental politics, global hunger, and war.
Instructor
St. John’s University
Fall 2023, GOV 1700 Comparative Political Systems (Government and Politics)
Designed course, prepared materials, taught hybrid in-person and asynchronously and evaluated students’ work on comparative politics methodologies, history, diverse governing arrangements, global geography and questions of scope and scale of political systems.
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS
American Political Science Association
Midwest Political Science Association
LANGUAGES
Fluency in Spanish, written and spoken. Facility with Italian.
TRAINING
Online Teaching Essentials Certification
Daniel R. Richards 