I’m a dad, husband, and environmental anthropology Ph.D. student. I grew up in El Paso, Texas and studied journalism in undergrad.

I worked for two years as a reporter in Laramie, Wyoming, where my journalistic work focused on education and environmental issues.

I’ve always been interested in the complex intersections of landscape and culture, specifically in the American West and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, both as grounded places and cultural ideas. So, in 2015, I walked from Mexico to Canada up the spine of the Rockies. The blog detailing that six-month journey can be found here.

During that walk, I noted the ways in which rivers shape land and people. I saw how life organizes itself around flowing waters. I learned that one can read history through attention to the social lives of rivers. And that environmental problems are like water in a watershed: They trickls downward, finding their way, condensing and consolidating in the rivers of the world.

Having reached Canada, I had nothing to do, so I went back to El Paso, broke and idealistic. I decided to make a career of learning about land and water and their interrelations with people.

I earned a master’s degree in Latin American and Border Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso, where I studied under the noted anthropologist Josiah Heyman and research ecologist Bill Hargrove. They taught me about the importance of environmental justice. A watershed cannot be called “sustainable,” for example, if people living within it do not have adequate access to water and sewer services.

At UTEP, I was a research assistant with the Center for Environmental Resource Management. My thesis looked at household water insecurity in low-income border communities and the soft path to water as a potential means for alleviating the burdens of household water insecurity. Studies from that project can be found here.

I grew more and more fascinated by the people, politics, history, and hydrology of the Rio Grande. So, I broadened the scope of my research to look up and down the watershed, to see if I could learn something about how various Rio Grande water conflicts connect with one another. That’s the thrust of my current Ph.D. research at CU Boulder, where I’m working to understand the intricacies of political ecology and water under the guidance of Jerry Jacka.

In July of 2022, my family of three expanded to five. We had twin boys! They make me so very happy. They are named Atlas and Rio. Here is a picture of them and my beautiful wife, Priscilla, and my radiant daughter, Brianna.