I am an environmental historian with training in anthropology, philosophy, and geography. An interest in the interplay between the functioning of (Euro-American) law and the multitude of environments to which these legal frameworks seem to be applied indiscriminately and which in fact significantly shape both laws and institutional practices, marks the center of my current work.

In my dissertation, I examined the emergence of state institutions, their practices and policies, in the interior, riverine border zone between Alaska (United States of America) and the Yukon Territory (Canada) at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, especially with reference to the operation of law enforcement, customs, and fisheries agencies. I was particularly interested in the role of the arctic and subarctic environments with their specific energetic properties that had drastic ramifications to the emergence of state institutions and the strategies and tactics deployed by state officials in a region characterized by extensive resource extraction and capitalization. In addition, I conducted research focusing on energy and fisheries diplomacy between the U.S. and Canada in the postwar period between ca. 1945 and 1970 affecting the Yukon riverlands.

Thematic expertise:

- Economic and Energy History (esp. Studies of Extractivism and New Histories of Capitalism)

- Legal and Diplomatic History (esp. with reference to northern North America and the northern Pacific)

- (More-than-Human) Borderlands Histories, Histories of the American/Canadian West/s

- Rural Studies

Regional expertise:

- Northern North America

- Pacific Northwest

- Greenland