ABOUT

I am an Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Political Science (with tenure) in the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles. I study the political economy of development and environmental politics and policy, with a focus on cities, civil society, and Latin America. My new book, Slow Harms and Citizen Action: Environmental Degradation in Latin American Cities, examines environmental justice movements surrounding river pollution in the capital regions of Lima, Bogotá and Buenos Aires (Oxford University Press, Forthcoming). My book, Water and Politics: Clientelism and Reform in Mexico (University of Michigan Press, 2017), looks at the politics of public services provision in Mexican cities, and received the Dennis Judd Best Book Award from the Urban and Local Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. Before joining the faculty at UCLA, I was a professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut. I hold a B.A. from Swarthmore College (2003) and a PhD from UC Berkeley (2011).

I am working on new projects related to the politics of the waste sector. These include urban waste and landfill management, the connection between informal recyclers (waste pickers) and urban sustainability, the global waste trade in plastics, recycling markets, and the links between waste, environment, and politics. I also have new ongoing research projects on California environmental policy, including desalination plants and plastics reduction campaigns.