I grew up near Washington, D.C. and my parents worked for the U.S. government and a foreign embassy. I developed an interest in international politics at a young age. In college, I double-majored in sociology and music and completed a masters degree in urban affairs. I received my Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Kentucky in 2001. While there, I also earned a certificate in social theory. I taught at the University of South Carolina from 2001-2006. I joined the Department of Geography at Miami University in 2006.
While my focus is political geography and forced migration, I engage more broadly with much of human geography, particularly in Southeast Europe. My largest research projects focus on return migrations by those forcibly displaced. One such project is an on-going study of the geopolitics of Kurdish refugee migration. The forced migration of Kurds and others out of northern Iraq contributes to one of the most persistent migration streams to Europe and North America in recent history. The problems for both asylum seeker and host government are exacerbated by the reticence of many Europeans, Americans, and Canadians to sponsor refugees, and complicating political and social factors occasionally marked by violence. My research seeks to better understand these tensions and their role in international politics.
Another project focuses on the international community's belated effort to reverse ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, on which I have been collaborating with Dr. Gerard Toal (Gearóid Ó Tuathail) of Virginia Tech. Our research focuses on the geopolitics surrounding implementation of the Dayton Peace Accord's provision for refugee returns. We conducted fieldwork there during 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2005. This work was funded by the National Science Foundation. This project has yielded numerous publications, including a book [go to publications].
Other areas of research include transnational and diasporic identities, international politics in the Balkans and Middle East, as well as cultural geopolitical identities such as masculinity and nationalism. I am currently beginning new research projects on: the nationalist imagination of genetic origins; non-state spaces; and the cultural geopolitics of air power. Past research investigated the political geographical aspects of campaign finance in the United States, part of which appeared in the January 2001 issue of The Atlantic Monthly.