Welcome! I’m a Research Economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, photographer, pilot, and outdoorsman. I completed my Ph.D. in economics at Vanderbilt in 2021, and my interests lie in balancing human needs with healthy ecosystems, particularly for the American Great Plains. My professional skill set is rooted in statistics, econometrics, data management, history, and writing.

My research focuses on environmental migration on the dusty plains of the 1930s, a period that offers a unique vantage for understanding migration. A major benefit of my historical focus is access to full-count census data at the individual level, a richness of detail that modern datasets seldom match. Full-count census data means that I observe migration for every person in the U.S.—if your family resided in the U.S. during the 1930s, they play a role in my research. The questions that intrigue us today—who migrates from drought, to where, and with what outcomes—are the ones I explore with the depth and clarity afforded by historical data.