Because humans are enmeshed in our environments, all our work is in a sense collaborative. I find energy and hope when I join with others to share, synthesize, translate, and repurpose knowledge for the common good.
I was part of the 2011-12 cohort of the Umóⁿhoⁿ (Omaha) language class at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and since 2014 I have been participating in a long-standing effort to complete an Umóⁿhoⁿ language and culture textbook. The textbook, published in August 2018 with the University of Nebraska Press, is a collaboration between speakers and teachers from UNL and Umóⁿhoⁿ Nation Public School.
While in graduate school, I collaborated with an ecologist who was also a graduate fellow at the Center for Great Plains Studies on an interdisciplinary study of Juniperus virginiana, eastern redcedar. Our article was published in 2017 in the open access journal Ecology & Society.
I served as an elected Graduate Student Liaison for the Association for the Study of Literature & Environment for the calendar years of 2016 and 2017. I worked with the ASLE Mentoring Coordinators and other ASLE Officers and Program Coordinators to develop and implement policies, conference initiatives, and programs that support the well-being and development of graduate students and graduate studies.
Beginning in the summer of 2015, the Land Institute has brought together a multidisciplinary group of teachers, writers, and thinkers to discuss the problem of education and the possibility of ecosphere studies. I have been fortunate to be part of this conversation, from which more projects have been growing.
In fall 2015 I received a fellowship from UNL’s Center for Great Plains Studies and the Office of Research & Economic Development to help organize a 2016 symposium on the life and literature of John G. Neihardt. This free, public event was in partnership with the University of Nebraska Press. Along with several other scholars, I presented my research at the symposium; my talk focused on Neihardt’s Omaha stories. After the 2016 symposium, I served as a member of the program committee for the 2017 Center for Great Plains Studies Symposium.
From 2014-16 I was a member of Watershed, an independent blog of critical theory written by UNL graduate students. I regularly contributed reviews and short essays.
From 2010-15, I served on the advisory board at the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Nebraska. I did an internship with the CFRA in 2010 to learn about their policy work, and since then I’ve been a strong supporter; I’ve also contributed to several of their organizing projects.
In 2012, Kristin Van Tassel and I co-authored a conversational essay for the Journal of Ecocriticism. Kristin and I have collaborated on a variety of projects over the years.