education
- 2014-present: Ph.D. Candidate in English, UC Davis, Davis, CA
- Designated Emphasis in Science and Technology Studies
- Working Dissertation Title: “Speculative Planetology: Science, Culture, and the Building of Model Worlds”
- Dissertation Director: Prof. Colin Milburn
- 2013: M.Phil in Criticism and Culture, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- 2012: M.A. with Distinction in Science Fiction Studies, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
- 2011: B.A., English, Duke University, Durham, NC
- Certificate in Documentary Studies,
- Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude, Faculty Scholar, highest distinction in the English major
publications
“The Working Planetologist: Speculative Worlds and the Practice of Climate Science.” Forthcoming in Practices of Speculation: Modeling, Embodiment, Figuration, eds. Jeanne Cortiel, Christine Hanke, Jan Hutta, and Colin Milburn. Transcript Verlag, 2020.
“Genre, Utopia, and Ecological Crisis: World-Multiplication in Le Guin’s Fantasy.” Green Letters 17.3 (2013), pp 264 - 280.
“Genre, Utopia, and Ecological Crisis: World-Multiplication in Le Guin’s Fantasy.” Green Letters 17.3 (2013), pp 264 - 280.
awards and honors
Fellowships and Full Scholarships
2019-2020 Bilinski Fellow
2019 Spring Quarter Distinguished Dissertation Fellow (UC Davis English Dept.)
2011-2013 Marshall Scholar
2007-2011 A.B. Duke Memorial Scholar
Individual Grants, Short-Term Fellowships, and Honors
2019-20 UCHRI Graduate Student Dissertation Support Award
“Otherworlds: Imagining Planets with Butler, Herbert and the Pulps,”
June 2018 MCT Wakeham Environmental Humanities Fellow
Spring 2016 Passed Preliminary Exams with Honors (Topics: American Literature 1945-Present, American Literature 1865-1914, Environmental Humanities)
Collaborative Grants
2018-19 UC Humanities Research Institute Multicampus Graduate Working Group:
Science/Fiction, Science/Media: Re-theorizing STS's Cultural Landscape (collaboration)
2018-19 UC Davis Humanities Institute Interdisciplinary Research Cluster:
Technoscience + Speculative Media (collaboration; renewed for 2019-20)
2019-2020 Bilinski Fellow
2019 Spring Quarter Distinguished Dissertation Fellow (UC Davis English Dept.)
2011-2013 Marshall Scholar
2007-2011 A.B. Duke Memorial Scholar
Individual Grants, Short-Term Fellowships, and Honors
2019-20 UCHRI Graduate Student Dissertation Support Award
“Otherworlds: Imagining Planets with Butler, Herbert and the Pulps,”
June 2018 MCT Wakeham Environmental Humanities Fellow
Spring 2016 Passed Preliminary Exams with Honors (Topics: American Literature 1945-Present, American Literature 1865-1914, Environmental Humanities)
Collaborative Grants
2018-19 UC Humanities Research Institute Multicampus Graduate Working Group:
Science/Fiction, Science/Media: Re-theorizing STS's Cultural Landscape (collaboration)
2018-19 UC Davis Humanities Institute Interdisciplinary Research Cluster:
Technoscience + Speculative Media (collaboration; renewed for 2019-20)
talks and presentations
SELECTED CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
TALKS AND PRESENTATIONS, NOT PEER REVIEWED
2020: "Terraforming from Science to Fiction," Strelka Institute, The Terraforming Graduate Program, April 20
2020: "World Building from Science Fiction to Planetary Science," MAPS Science Series, Modesto Jr. College, February 28
2018: “Doomsday Preppers and Research Methods”, Guest Lecture in “Media Subcultures”
2017: “Climate Simulation and Games: Hundreds of Ways to End the World by Climate Catastrophe”, Guest Lecture in “Videogames and Culture”
2017: “This Changes Everything! The Uses of Nature in Climate Culture and The Windup Girl”, Guest Lecture in “SF Red, SF Green: Collective Ecologies”
2015: Respondent, Environments and Societies Colloquium, UC Davis
- “The Planet Behind the Forecast: Climate Modeling, World Building, and Science Fiction,” American Comparative Literature Association, Chicago, IL, March 2020
- “Climate Science, General Circulation Models, and Speculative Planetology,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Denver, CO, April 2020
- “Of Puzzle Planets and Water Worlds: Speculative Planetology, Science, and Fiction,” Society for Literature, Science and Art, Irvine, CA, November 2019
- Foldit Demo, SLSArcade Exhibition, Society for Literature, Science and Art, Irvine, CA, November 2019
- “Speculative Media and Epistemic Change,” 4S, New Orleans, September 2019 (co-authored)
- “’A Concentration of Subjects’ in Speculative Planetology,” Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, Davis, June 2019
- “Speculative Worlds and Allegorithmic Climate Science in Educational Video Games,” Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Seattle, March 2019
- “‘Natural, but Currently Unobservable’: Modeling the Mind’s Eye in the 1980s,” Society for Literature, Science and Art, Toronto, November 2018
- “Beyond the Teapot: The Worldly Atmospherics of CGI in the 1980s,” American Studies Association, Atlanta, November 2018
- “‘Speculative Media, Science, and the Future,” Symposium on Speculative Futures, HATCH, UC Davis, October 2018 (co-author)
- Panelist, “Science Fiction and Cultures of Science” WorldCon, San José, August 2018
- “‘We are not trying to model the Earth, but rather a fictional world’: Arrakis, Daisyworld, and other model climates,” Science Fiction Research Association, Marquette University, July 2018
- “Model, Manual and Meaning: Paratexts in SimEarth and in Climate Science,” Society for Literature, Science and Art, Arizona State University, August 2017
- “Determinism, Deep Time, and Desert Ecology: Re-reading Dune for the Anthropocene,” Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, Detroit MI, June 2017
- “Is Climate Change a Game? SimEarth, Emergent Systems, and our Playable Planet,” Science Fiction Research Association, Riverside, CA, June 2017
- “The Feedbacks of Frank Herbert’s Dune,” EcoMaterialisms Collective: Scales of Mattering Conference, Davis, CA 2016
- “History’s Heat Map: 1990’s SF and the Narrative Impossibility of Climate Change," Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, Moscow, ID, 2015
- “‘Frightened Animals Snarling over Water Rights’: Narrating History at the Edge of Nature/Culture.” Science Fiction Foundation Conference, Liverpool, UK, 2015
- “Change We Can’t Believe In: The Windup Girl on the Ethics of Global Warming," Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, UK, 2012
- “The Special Relationship: Doctor Who on Hollywood, Liberalism, and the Decline of Britishness”, Worlds Apart Science Fiction Conference, University of Hertsfordshire, UK, 2012
- “The Ecological Apocalypse: Personifying Nature in the Quest for Environmental Justice.” MLA Annual Convention, Los Angeles, CA, 2011
- “Bacteria Can Mutate: 1950’s Masculinity and “the Last of the Old Race” in I Am Legend”, Contagion: UC Irvine Culture and Theory Conference, Irvine, CA, 2010
TALKS AND PRESENTATIONS, NOT PEER REVIEWED
2020: "Terraforming from Science to Fiction," Strelka Institute, The Terraforming Graduate Program, April 20
2020: "World Building from Science Fiction to Planetary Science," MAPS Science Series, Modesto Jr. College, February 28
2018: “Doomsday Preppers and Research Methods”, Guest Lecture in “Media Subcultures”
2017: “Climate Simulation and Games: Hundreds of Ways to End the World by Climate Catastrophe”, Guest Lecture in “Videogames and Culture”
2017: “This Changes Everything! The Uses of Nature in Climate Culture and The Windup Girl”, Guest Lecture in “SF Red, SF Green: Collective Ecologies”
2015: Respondent, Environments and Societies Colloquium, UC Davis
- Gerry Canavan, “Science Fiction and Utopia in the Anthropocene” (29 April)
- Nicole Seymour, “Queer Environmental Performance and New Ecological Identities” (4 Feb)
teaching
2018 Introduction to Academic Literacies: “21st Century Literacies” (University Writing Program, 2 quarters, instructor of record)
2018 SAT Verbal Instructor, UC Davis Extension, SABIC Program (one quarter, instructor of record)
2017 Teaching Assistant and Section Leader, “Videogames and Culture”, Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux
2017 Teaching Assistant, “SF Red, SF Green: Collective Ecologies”, Joshua Clover
2016 Teaching Assistant and Section Leader, “American/Ethnic Studies”, Desirée Martín
2018 SAT Verbal Instructor, UC Davis Extension, SABIC Program (one quarter, instructor of record)
2017 Teaching Assistant and Section Leader, “Videogames and Culture”, Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux
2017 Teaching Assistant, “SF Red, SF Green: Collective Ecologies”, Joshua Clover
2016 Teaching Assistant and Section Leader, “American/Ethnic Studies”, Desirée Martín
critical making and media production
2017- Writer and Graphic Designer, Foldit Videogame Narrative Group, UC Davis Modlab
2017-19 Science Fiction Consultant to Eric Roth, Screenwriter for Dune (forthcoming in 2020)
2016-18 Lead Graphic Designer, Critical Wearable Technology Group, UC Davis Modlab
2010-12 Editor-in-Chief, Graphics Editor, Archive Literary Magazine
2017-19 Science Fiction Consultant to Eric Roth, Screenwriter for Dune (forthcoming in 2020)
2016-18 Lead Graphic Designer, Critical Wearable Technology Group, UC Davis Modlab
2010-12 Editor-in-Chief, Graphics Editor, Archive Literary Magazine
service
Committees and Groups
2019-20 Co-convener, Davis Humanities Institute’s “Technoscientific Futures” research cluster
2018-19 Co-convener, Davis Humanities Institute’s “Technoscience + Speculative Media” research cluster
2018-19 Co-director, UC Humanities Research Institute’s “Science Fiction / Science Media” interdisciplinary graduate working group
2017-18 Graduate Fellow, UC Davis Program in Science and Technology Studies
2016- Member, UC Davis ModLab
2016-17 Director, Game Studies Reading Group, funded by Davis Humanities Institute
2016-17 Scholars’ Symposium Co-Chair, UCD English Graduate Student Association
2017 Library Committee Graduate Representative, English Department, UC Davis
2016 Events Committee Graduate Representative, English Department, UC Davis
2013 Director, Darwin College Writing Group, University of Cambridge
Events organized
2020 Co-organizer, "book birthday party" event series for Technocultural Futures Research Cluster
2019 Co-organizer, Technocultures Workbench: Making and Thinking Futures, UC Berkeley, September 13
2019 Co-host, Gaming Play-In Event: Relationality Mechanics and Land as Levels in Indigenous Games (featuring Elizabeth LaPensée), ASLE, UC Davis, June 29th
2019 Co-host, ModLab Eco-Gaming Open House, ASLE, UC Davis, June 28th
2019 Co-organizer, Futurity Factory: a symposium on speculative media, UC Davis, Feb 22
2019 Organizer, Big Trees, Big Questions, Speculative Media Writing Retreat and Workshop, April 5-8, Calaveras County, CA
2018 Lead Organizer, California Science and Technology Studies Retreat at the Marin Headlands
2010 Director, A.B. Duke Speaker Series, “The Future of the Human Body: perspectives on genomics, technology, and the perils and promises of cracking the code.”
2019-20 Co-convener, Davis Humanities Institute’s “Technoscientific Futures” research cluster
2018-19 Co-convener, Davis Humanities Institute’s “Technoscience + Speculative Media” research cluster
2018-19 Co-director, UC Humanities Research Institute’s “Science Fiction / Science Media” interdisciplinary graduate working group
2017-18 Graduate Fellow, UC Davis Program in Science and Technology Studies
2016- Member, UC Davis ModLab
2016-17 Director, Game Studies Reading Group, funded by Davis Humanities Institute
2016-17 Scholars’ Symposium Co-Chair, UCD English Graduate Student Association
2017 Library Committee Graduate Representative, English Department, UC Davis
2016 Events Committee Graduate Representative, English Department, UC Davis
2013 Director, Darwin College Writing Group, University of Cambridge
Events organized
2020 Co-organizer, "book birthday party" event series for Technocultural Futures Research Cluster
2019 Co-organizer, Technocultures Workbench: Making and Thinking Futures, UC Berkeley, September 13
2019 Co-host, Gaming Play-In Event: Relationality Mechanics and Land as Levels in Indigenous Games (featuring Elizabeth LaPensée), ASLE, UC Davis, June 29th
2019 Co-host, ModLab Eco-Gaming Open House, ASLE, UC Davis, June 28th
2019 Co-organizer, Futurity Factory: a symposium on speculative media, UC Davis, Feb 22
2019 Organizer, Big Trees, Big Questions, Speculative Media Writing Retreat and Workshop, April 5-8, Calaveras County, CA
2018 Lead Organizer, California Science and Technology Studies Retreat at the Marin Headlands
2010 Director, A.B. Duke Speaker Series, “The Future of the Human Body: perspectives on genomics, technology, and the perils and promises of cracking the code.”
other
EXTRA TRAINING AND RESEARCH
2017 Planetary Futures International Graduate Summer School, Concordia University
2017 Interviewer, Critical Wearable Technology Group, UC Davis ModLab
2016 Introduction to Text Mining Workshop (taught by Carl Stahmer, Data Science Initiative, UC Davis)
2015-16 Graduate Student Researcher, Mellon Research Initiative in Digital Cultures, UC Davis
2015 Digital Methods Course, Fall 2015, UC Davis English Dept.
NON-ACADEMIC WORK EXPERIENCE
2014 Researcher and Interviewer, Medical University of South Carolina Dean’s Office, documenting the lives and strategies of women in professional leadership roles
2010 Science Writing Intern, Union of Concerned Scientists, Stanback Summer Intern
2007 Intern, Duke University Press, Books Marketing
2007 Duke Visual Studies Summer Fellow
2017 Planetary Futures International Graduate Summer School, Concordia University
2017 Interviewer, Critical Wearable Technology Group, UC Davis ModLab
2016 Introduction to Text Mining Workshop (taught by Carl Stahmer, Data Science Initiative, UC Davis)
2015-16 Graduate Student Researcher, Mellon Research Initiative in Digital Cultures, UC Davis
2015 Digital Methods Course, Fall 2015, UC Davis English Dept.
NON-ACADEMIC WORK EXPERIENCE
2014 Researcher and Interviewer, Medical University of South Carolina Dean’s Office, documenting the lives and strategies of women in professional leadership roles
2010 Science Writing Intern, Union of Concerned Scientists, Stanback Summer Intern
2007 Intern, Duke University Press, Books Marketing
2007 Duke Visual Studies Summer Fellow
