Employment

Assistant Professor, Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies, Grand Valley State University, Fall 2022-

Other Academic Appointments:

Co-lead, Great Lakes History Research Group, a transdisciplinary and international research collective consisting of researchers and scholars investigating the Great Lakes region based at the University of Windsor (Canada) and Grand Valley State University (US). The Great Lakes History Research Group is interested in local and regional histories drawing interdisciplinary scholarship.

Co-PI, Homeward Stories Lab, a transdisciplinary, digital-native, and international project that showcases analyses of the Underground Railroad along the Detroit River. The lab will be an immersive analytical experience of the Underground Railroad along the Detroit River for community members and students.

Education

PhD. Michigan State University, Department of History, 2022

Awarded the Gill-Chin Lim Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in Global Studies,

Michigan State University International Studies and Programs

MUD.    Lawrence Technological University, 2016

MPhil. Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2012

MA. Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2008

BMM University of Mumbai, 2005

Chapters and Articles

“Sedimentality: Sediment Landscapes, Socio-politics, and the Environment in the Lower Detroit River,” Water History (2021) 13 (1): 95-116.

“Floatsam: Garbage Dumping, Pollution, and Legal Tensions in the Detroit River,” Water History 12 (2020): 361-371.

“Dredge a River, Make a Nation Great: Shipping, Commerce and Territoriality in the Detroit River, 1870-1905,” Michigan Historical Review 45, no. 1 (Spring 2019): 27-46.  

“Exportable Engineering Expertise for ‘Development’: A Story of Large Dams in Post Independence India.” Water History (2013) 6 (2): 153-165.

“A Cohort of Their Own: Indian Hydraulic Engineers as Interlocuters of Dams and Development,” in Vincent Lagendijk and Frederik Schulze (eds.), Dam Internationalism: Power, Expertise and Technology in the Twentieth Century (London: Bloomsbury, 2023)

Awards and Grants

2023-24 Inaugural Brooks Interdisciplinary Collaboration Grant to conduct student-led data collection and analysis.

2023-24 Teaching Innovation Grant, GVSU Pew Faculty Learning and Training Center for “Next stop: Midnight,” a digital humanities project chronicling the Underground     

                Railroad along the Detroit River [Co-PI]

2023       Summer Undergraduate Research Assistant Award [Co-PI]

2021-22  Dissertation Completion Fellowship, MSU Graduate School

2021-22  SEEK Fellow, MSU Graduate School and the MSU Museum

2021-22  Graduate Fellow, MSU Hub for Innovation in Learning and Technology

2021        DH@MSU Microgrant program, Principal Investigator, summer funding for an MSU undergraduate student on a digital mapping project.

2021        Delia Koo Global Student Scholarship, Asian Studies Center, MSU

2020       Equity Graduate Student Fellowship, American Society for Environmental History (ASEH)

2020       David Horner International Student Scholarship Grant, OISS-MSU

2020       Research Scholars Award, MSU Graduate School

2020       Milton E. and Kathleen D. Muelder Scholarship, MSU Safe Place, MSU

2019-20  Graduate Writing Fellowship, College of Social Science, MSU

2019-20  Cultural Heritage Informatics Senior Fellowship (by invitation) MSU State University

2019        Mark C. Stevens Traveling Fellowship, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

2018        Sinclair and S. Suzanne Powell Scholarship in Transportation History, Department of History, MSU

2017        ESPP Urban Environment Summer Research Fellowship, ESPP, MSU

2017        Madison Kuhn Award for best pre-dissertation project, Department of History, MSU

2016-17   Cultural Heritage Informatics Fellowship, Department of Anthropology, MSU

Select Conference Panels

2023 Connection, and Belonging,” European Society for Environmental History (via Zoom), Bern, Switzerland.

2023. Panel Participant, “Teaching the Midwest,” Midwestern History Association Annual Conference, Grand Rapids MI.

2023 “Interpreting Rivers for Dams: Indian Hydro-Engineers, Rivers, and Knowledge Creation 1930-1980,” at Dam Scientists: Exploring the Role of Hard Sciences in Framing the

Environmental Impact Of Dams Workshop, University of Trento, Italy.

2023 Session Participant, “Teaching Indigenous History as Environmental History and Vice Versa,” American Society for Environmental History.

Roundtable Participant, “Naturalized and Denaturalized: Teaching Capitalism and the Environment,” American Society for Environmental History.

2022 “A Cohort of Their Own: Indian Hydraulic Engineers as Interlocutors of Dams and Development,” The Global Nature of Dam Building, Workshop at the Center for

Interdisciplinary Research, Bielefeld University (via Zoom).

2022 Roundtable participant, “Intersectional Environmental Feminisms in the Digital Space,” virtual Feminist Digital Methods conference, York University.

2022 Panel Participant, “Enlarging Our Tent: Coaching Novice Guest Curators and Educators in Exhibition Development,” Association of Midwest Museums Conference

2021 Panel Participant, “Problems of Place: A Conversation on Community, Connection, and Belonging,” European Society for Environmental History Conference.

2022. Workshop co-organizer, #FlipTheList: An Initiative to Diversify Environmental History on Wikipedia (and Everywhere Else), ESEH Conference.

2022. “Saving a Cursed Dumping Ground: Local Activism, Binational Ambition, and Stymied Plans in the Detroit River,” Midwestern History Association Annual Conference.

2021 “What is a River?” Water Ecologies Summer Institute, Bucknell University PA (over Zoom).

2021        “Scarcity in Abundance: The International Joint Commission and the Politics of Infrastructure in the Lower Detroit River 1912-1917,” Fighting Scarcity and Creating

               Abundance: The Politics of Food and Water in Canadian History and Beyond Workshop, McMaster University (conducted over Zoom).

2021       “Dredgescapes: Artifacts Connecting the Past and Present,” Midwestern History Association Annual Conference.

2020      “Flotsam: Garbage Dumping, Pollution, and Legal Tensions in the Detroit River,” American Society for Environmental History Annual Meeting,[Conference cancelled due to 

               COVID 19].

2019       “Sedimentality: The Social Life of Sediment Landscapes in the Lower Detroit River,” The Social Life of the Sediment Balance: Combining Social and Geomorphic

               Approaches to River Systems and Deltas, University of California-Berkeley River Lab

2019       “Borderlands as Infrastructurescapes: Rethinking Political Borders,” ON EDGE: Mediating Cultural Borders, University of Windsor, May 23, 2019.

2018        “Borderlandia: Amusement Parks, Public Lands, and the story of emptiness in the Detroit River,” Society for the History of Technology Annual Meeting.