research overview
- I am a historian with expertise in the history of technology, capitalism, and the environment. My focus is the energy industries in twentieth century United States. My forthcoming book, Natural Risk, argues that the Texas response to environmental and economic hazards was shaped from the bottom-up by oil workers, contractors, engineers, and entrepreneurs who accepted a very high level of “natural” risk. This set the parameters for Texas industrialization after 1920. I am developing a second book project on electricity and renewables development in the US Southwest, especially Colorado. I have published on the environmental and social history of energy technology in several venues. Along with articles on oil industry political economy and labor structures, I recently published an article tracking the linked histories of oil detection technologies and early computing. I am an editor and contributor to the 2023 volume American Energy Cinema which examines the energy industries in twentieth-century Hollywood film. I am currently working on articles tracking the economic and social impacts of oil industry labor migration and another on the environmental impact of roadside gas stations. In spring 2025 I began a digital mapping and oral history project tracking the history of electrification in the US West.
