About
I am a writer, researcher, multimedia storyteller, and geographer. My work explores urban, political, and historical geographies, and my research interests include memory and archival theory, aesthetic politics, violence and displacement, humanitarianism and development, and the history of technology.
I am currently working on two book projects: a revision of my dissertation on the history and legacies of Khao I Dang—a refugee camp established in Thailand after the Cambodian genocide—and a book about war, memory, and mourning inspired by family history. My first book, Futureproof: Security Aesthetics and the Management of Life, which I co-edited with Asher Ghertner and Daniel Goldstein, was published by Duke University Press in 2020.
I have a PhD in geography from Rutgers University, an MA in political ecology & ethnographic film from NYU, and a BA in geography from Ohio State University.
I have been a Beinecke Scholar, Center for Khmer Studies Senior Fellow, Fulbright Grantee, and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. At Rutgers, I was a Presidential Fellow and Graduate Fellow in Arts & Aesthetics at the Center for Cultural Analysis. At NYU, I was selected by the Gallatin School faculty, for “overall academic excellence,” to be the Master of Arts Degree Representative for the Class of 2013 at NYU’s All-University Commencement. At Ohio State, I received the Provost’s Distinguished Senior Award.
I live in New York, where I am also an artist and typewriter collector, technician, and advisor.