About

In the fall of 2023, I began a Banting post-doctoral fellowship in the department of sociology at UBC. Prior to this, I was a post-doctoral fellow at York university in the department of sociology at Glendon College. I completed my PhD at the University of Victoria where I taught courses in both the department of sociology and in the interdisciplinary human dimension of climate change program. My research is in the field of the sociology of climate change, with a focus on the political economy of energy transition and decarbonization.

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My research includes three streams.

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1. Corporate power and climate obstruction. This aspect of my research addresses organized efforts to prevent, delay, and circumvent robust action on climate change. I have focused on the economic organization and political-cultural influence of the fossil fuel sector, including in political lobbying, the entrenchment of fossil-fuel interests in state research and innovation agencies and via fossil-linked think tank and advocacy networks. This work has been done in collaboration with the Corporate Mapping Project. I also participate in the Climate Social Science Network, where I am currently contributing to a global study of the Atlas think tank network and its efforts to delay and obstruct meaningful climate action.

2. The political economy of decarbonization and energy transition. I am currently investigating the construction and evolution of a 'green growth' or 'clean growth' project of climate change action in Canada. Employing a neo-Gramscian lens, I analyze the policy-planning and integral state networks (spanning civil society, state and economy), and discourses (governmental and civil society) emerging to advance the project. Broadly, I aim to provide insight into the prospects and limits of this project, which has become a predominant framework for addressing climate change.

3.  Eco-Marxism and eco-socialism. My work aims to contribute to historical materialist analyses of climate and ecological crises and alternatives. This has been done mainly by reinterpreting the concept of forces of production, from an ecological standpoint. Through this reconceptualization, I consider how advancements in “green productive forces” (e.g., ecological knowledge itself, as well as associated developments in renewable energy technology, green infrastructure), are constrained and obstructed, by capitalist growth imperatives, including by the power of the fossil fuel industry and other corporate sectors. This contributes to theoretical debates between ecological modernization, de-growth and eco-socialist perspectives, among others and opens to a consideration of alternative visions and projects for green transformation.