Hello! I am a environmental media scholar and cultural historian focusing on the relationship between media technologies, digital growth, social justice, & the environment. I strive to break scholarly actitivy out of the ivory tower and to build enduring collaborations connecting academic research, local communities, industry stakeholders, and policy makers in pursuit of positive change in the conservation of ecological and cultural heritage.

In addition to being Assistant Professor of Visual and Media Arts at Emerson College, I am:

• AUTHOR of Hollywood’s Dirtiest Secret: the Hidden Environmental Costs of the Movies (Columbia University Press, 2019), an environmental counter-narrative to Hollywood history looking at the resource use and ecosystem disruptions behind the silver screen’s masterpieces, focusing on the environmental and global justice ramifications of the digital turn. I have given book talks at Books & Books (Coral Gables FL), the Boston Film and Media Speaker Series (Wellesley College), and the Boulder Book Store (Boulder, CO)

  Check out a review and interview/video essay on Hollywood’s Dirtiest Secret

  Check out an interview on the book for the Imagine Otherwise podcast

• co-PRINCIPLE INVESTIGATOR (w/ Nicole Starosielski) on Sustainable Subsea Networks grant project to study and support environmental sustainability in the subsea telecommunication cable network. Listen to recent NPR coverage here

• co-DIRECTOR (w/ Pietari Kääpä ) on an the Global Green Media Network to facilitate and support environmentally responsible film and media production initiatives around the world

• FOUNDING EDITOR (w/ Meryl Shriver-Rice) of the Journal of Environmental Media (Intellect Books), an interdisciplinary scholarly platform bridging work in environmental studies, social justice, and science communication through the prism of screen media

My teaching and research explore overlapping spaces betwixt media studies, environmental studies, ecocinema, social movements, and cultural heritage - for which I have been featured on stories at NPR and the BBC. Current collaborative projects on media infrastructures, production cultures, social justice, and historical ecology include:

• collaboration with the leading scholars of digital media infrastructures and subsea cable industry professionals to enhance environmental sustainability and social equity in the future of digital growth (with Nicole Starosielski, funded by the Internet Society Foundation

• studies of environmental values and political economy in the localized development of green production practices. Check out my most recent publication, in Environmental Values: “A Green Intervention in Media Production Culture Studies: Environmental Values, Political Economy and Mobile Production”

• the Fuel Project’s ‘The Shift’ report, in collaboration with Film London and Creative Zero, publishing research on transport and mobile power fuel use and carbon footprint data for London’s film and television industry, with technical analysis and policy recommendations for mitigating and ultimately going net zero within a decade (in partnership with Film London and Creative Zero)

• Greening European Film Policy report, including collaborative partnerships with sustainability experts, practitioners, and offices in Ireland, Hungary, Italy and England, and including participants from across Europe and the UK (with Pietari Kääpä, funded by University of Warwick)

• community-based participatory research in the rural Italian town of Seggiano, combining focus group and photovoice research to document intergenerational perceptions and experiences of how climate change is impacting local cultural traditions and ecological heritage (with Meryl Shriver-Rice, funded by University of Cambridge)

For more on my research, publications, and teaching, use the drop down menu in the upper left (or lower left if using mobile) to SEE MY CV