I joined the University of New Haven in 2014 after earning a Ph.D. in English from the University of Connecticut and serving as a postdoc in Interdisciplinary Performance Studies at Yale. My scholarship focuses on book and theater history of the nineteenth century, the period just before/as technological innovations made possible the mass-produced books, moving images, and recorded sound we often take for granted today. I contrast the experiences of nineteenth-century readers and spectators with our own to encourage my students to think more critically about the ways we encounter culture.

I design courses that allow me to collaborate with my students to make real contributions to the disciplines we’re studying and the issues our communities are facing. For example, I have worked with my students on practice-based research into the history of shipboard performance by devising a rehearsal play aboard USS Constitution. In HUMN 1450, I’m looking forward collaborating with students to find innovative ways to respond to this global pandemic. I love mentoring students as they conduct their own independent research projects and one of my goals is to inspire students in my courses to pursue research opportunities like SURF and DH Lab.

My current research uncovers the centrality of storytelling to the maritime world, a realm of nineteenth-century history often explored in terms of naval battles and diplomatic strategy. Beyond the fields of performance studies and theater history, my methodology for this project comes from the field of digital humanities. My particular focus is on digital scholarly editing, which allows me to make rare-book and manuscript materials available online. For example, the process for my current book project about a troupe of sailor-actors aboard a nineteenth-century warship involves first creating a digital edition of the handwritten shipboard newspaper, The Young Idea, that chronicles performances aboard the ship. An extract from this larger project was published with Scholarly Editing. My research has also been published in Victorian Literature and Culture and Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies.

I spend a lot of time these days chatting with my 3-year-old son about plot twists in Paw Patrol and trying to convince him that his 6-month-old brother is not trying to break his trucks. I’m proud to be one of approximately one billion Americans currently obsessed with making sourdough bread.