I’m a Professor and author at Yale.

I study how land and belief shape the American identity, past and present.

I write across political and cultural divides.

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My work reaches both academic and public audiences. I frequently present my research to policymakers, including the U.S. Senate, the White House, the Vatican, and the United Nations. My research has been published by Science, Princeton University Press, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Sociological Review, Nature Climate Change, among others, with funding from the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation. 

I’m a first-generation college graduate and Wyoming native. I earned my Ph.D. from Notre Dame and divide my time between Yale and the Mountain West, where I direct a research program on rural communities and landscapes.

*New book in progress. Expected 2026, W.W. Norton Press