I am an Assistant Professor, in the Department of Philosophy at UMBC. I am also the Director of the Human Context of Science and Technology program.

My current research focuses on climate change ethics and climate change justice. First, I am working on the question of climate change reparations and what, if anything, greenhouse gas emitters owe those impacted by climate change. This question concerns the evaluation of harms and wrongs done by human agents of different kinds (collective and individual) and what theory of reparations ought to underpin analyses of climate change reparations. The second theme in my research concerns the distribution of the burdens of mitigating emissions, which is urgently needed to combat climate change. My research identifies, conceptualizes, and theorizes a gap in the existing literature—which often concentrates on the distribution between the rich and the poorest—concerning the emissions from the world’s middle-class individuals and countries. 

In past research, I have defended national responsibility for climate change against the objection that holding nations responsible is unfair to citizens who would ultimately bear the burdens of wrongdoing for which they are not responsible. I argue that the objection is based on a set of false assumptions about collective responsibility and civic responsibility. Citizens may bear burdens when their nation repairs wrongdoing, but they are not being held personally, morally responsible. 

A theme throughout my work concerns  the moral significance of the harms of climate change, especially the question of how climate change harms compare to other losses and gains from climate change and climate change policy. Difficulties comparing morally diverse impacts lead to questions at the heart of practical reasoning, including how to make hard choices and compare disparate goods, as well as whether  aggregation is morally defensible. 

I earned my Ph.D. in Philosophy from Stanford University in August 2017. I have degrees in philosophy from Northern Arizona University (BA) and the University of Montana (MA), where I also studied Forestry and Conservation. Before graduate school, I worked in wilderness management, trail construction, and cabin maintenance with the US Forest Service in Arizona and Alaska.

I live in Ellicott City, MD, with my husband, Jeph, and our three adorable cats, Pepper, Smokie, and Astro.