I am a historian of Latin America and an associate professor at the University of Vermont, specializing in twentieth century Mexico. I am the director of graduate studies in the UVM history department, as well as the director of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program. I hold a PhD in history (2010) and a MA in Latin American and Caribbean Studies (2004), both from the University of Chicago. My BA is from Brown University.

My first book, The Mexican Revolution's Wake: The Making of a Political System, 1920-1929 (Cambridge University Press, spring, 2018) is a social and political history of regional Socialist parties that set critical precedents for the creation of Mexico's single party-dominated system in the years following the Mexican Revolution. In 2019, it received an honorable mention for best social science book on Mexico from the Mexico section of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA). A Spanish language edition, Secuelas de la revolución: El nacimiento de un sistema político, 1920-1929, was published by the Centro de Investigaciones Multidisciplinarias Sobre Chiapas y la Frontera Sur— Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (CIMSUR-UNAM) press in 2024. It is available both in print and open access online: https://www.cimsur.unam.mx/index.php/publicacion/obra/186

My most recent journal article, “‘To Defend the Nicaraguan Revolution is to Defend Mexico’: Mexican Solidarity with the Sandinista Revolution, 1974-1982,” was published with Cold War History in November 2023 as part of a special volume on the global history of Sandinismo. It is the first published piece of my current research project. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14682745.2023.2282006

My current and planned future research examines long-term legacies of political violence in modern Mexico, and the changing meanings of "revolution" in Mexican politics and society during the twentieth century. In Latin America more generally, I am particularly interested in revolutionary politics, the rise and fall of authoritarian regimes, political violence, grassroots movements for democratization, human rights and social and economic justice, and the relationships between states and opposition movements. I am currently working on a book, tentatively titled Exit to the Future: Mexican Solidarity with Central American Revolutions, 1975-1985, which explores all of these themes. Parts of that project include research on the radical gay and lesbian left in Mexico, and Guatemalan refugees in southern Mexico in the 1980s.

As the sole historian of Latin America at UVM, I teach on a wide variety of Latin American topics and countries, from the ancient world to the present. In addition to introductory courses on Latin American history, I teach courses on topics including revolutions, authoritarianism, indigenous history, history and memory, drugs and drug trafficking, and modern Mexican history. Most of my teaching is interdisciplinary, and all my courses are designed to help students to use the past to better understand the present.

My latest teaching project is a new, interdisciplinary migration studies program and course sequence that I co-teach with colleagues in anthropology and political science. It includes a capstone seminar that I teach in which highly qualified undergraduates do country conditions research for asylum cases, for community partner organizations that represent asylum seekers pro-bono.

In recent years I have served as a Spanish-English interpreter for detained asylum seekers as well as a Mexico country conditions expert for asylum cases. I take on new cases as my schedule permits; please email me with asylum-related inquiries.