I am an environmental anthropologist and archaeologist. My work centers the study of land history and long-term effects of colonial empires from the perspective of plant-oriented practices: agriculture, forestry, gardening, foraging, seed-keeping, medicine, fuel and energy production. I am especially interested in theorizing ferality in plants, i.e. plants “escaping” cultivation, through case studies of abandoned land, lost foodways, and weeds.

My research spans cases in Europe and North America. My dissertation project analyzes the historical ecology of Roman imperialism in southern Croatia using paleoethnobotanical data to trace changes in local plant cultivation during the classical period. I am planning a new project examining the role of climate change and Euro-American settler colonialism in transforming Indigenous grain crops from staple foods to sidewalk weeds in the American Midwest.