about me
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at New York University. Trained as both an anthropologist and environmental engineer, my work broadly traces the entanglements of political power, engineering, and the urban environment. I am specifically interested in how unjust environmental conditions are produced and sustained through engineering practices, and how they might be made otherwise.
My book project, Governing Disaster: Engineering and the Growth of Mexico City, is an ethnography and history of flood control engineering in modern Mexico City. It reveals how engineering has become a crucial mode of governing disaster and enabling the imaginary of endless growth that is so central to the Anthropocene. I am also developing a new project focused on climate change, speed, and the politics of transportation engineering in Mexico City.
Articles based on my research in Mexico City have appeared in American Ethnologist, Antipode, and (in translation) in Desacatos. I have published shorter articles for the public in The Washington Post and Logic, among other outlets, which can be found here. I am also working with Mexican colleagues to create an online, interactive spatial documentary about flooding, Las Huellas del Agua / Watermarks, which draws on this project. I have been asked to speak about the water crisis in Mexico City for international media outlets like the BBC, NPR, and RFl, as well as Mexican news outlets like Animal Político, Pie de Página, El Economista, Diario 24 Horas, Radio Centro, and La Octava. I spend much of my free time working with community organizations struggling for workers’ rights and environmental justice.
I use he/him pronouns - and a recording of my last name’s pronunciation is below.
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Curriculum Vitae
Biografía
Soy un profesor-investigador del Departamento de Estudios Ambientales de la Universidad de Nueva York (NYU). Mis investigaciones se enfocan en la relación entre la ingeniería, el poder político, y la producción del medio ambiente en espacios urbanos. Actualmente estoy trabajando en un libro etnográfico y histórico sobre las obras del drenaje moderno en la Zona Metropolitana de la Ciudad de México, especialmente el Sistema de Drenaje Profundo, y su relación al crecimiento urbano de la misma de los años 1940 a la fecha. Mis artículos han sido publicado en Antipode, Logic Magazine, the Washington Post y American Ethnologist. Mi artículo en American Ethnologist fue traducido a español y publicado posteriormente en Desacatos. He dado entrevistas sobre mis investigaciones para una multitud de medios Mexicanos y extranjeros, incluyendo BBC, NPR, RFl, Animal Político, Pie de Página, El Economista, Diario 24 Horas, Radio Centro y La Octava.
Previamente era un investigador postdoctoral en la Facultad de Arquitectura de la Universidad de Princeton y era profesor-investigador en el Departamento de Sociología y Antropología de la Universidad de Texas en El Paso. Soy doctor en antropología sociocultural por la Universidad de Stanford y licenciado en ingeniería civil y estudios del desarrollo por la Universidad de Washington.