I am an Assistant Professor of History and Environmental Studies at Tulane University. My research explores how we come to know ourselves and other organisms in the environment, science, medicine, technology, and capitalism.
My first book, Lab Dog: What Global Science Owes American Beagles, traces the emergence of the laboratory dog as an experimental subject in eugenics, radiobiology, pharmacology, tobacco research, neuroscience, and more. It shows how dogs became transnational laboratory commodities and how scientists came to understand themselves and what it means to be human through beagles. Read more here.
My next book, Rotten Beauty, explores the history of mycology, offering a character-driven account of the botanists, amateur collectors, doctors, and industrial scientists who spent centuries trying to understand what fungi are. The book will be published by Knopf.
I received a PhD in the History of Science from Harvard University and was a postdoc in the School of Historical Studies at the IAS and IFK at UChicago. I have been supported by the Curtis Gates Lloyd Fellowship of the Lloyd Library & Museum, the Sydney Brenner Research Fellowship of the Center for Humanities & History of Modern Biology at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the Lisa Jardine History of Science Grant Scheme of the The Royal Society, and more.
My writing has been recognized with the IUHPST DHST Dissertation Prize, the HSS Nathan Reingold Prize, and Harvard University's Bowdoin Prize, as well as honorable mentions for the Notes and Records Essay Award, the FHHS John C. Burnham Early Career Award, the FHHMLS Graduate Student Essay Award, and the AAHM Shryock Medal.
A CV is available here (PDF). I have a Bluesky account and Instagram. You can also follow my occasional newsletter here.
