about me
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Texas at El Paso. I was previously a Princeton-Mellon Fellow in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities at Princeton University, where I was also affiliated with the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering. I received my PhD in Anthropology from Stanford University. Prior to my doctoral work, I trained and worked professionally as an environmental engineer.
My research examines how unjust environmental conditions are produced and sustained through engineering practices, and how they might be made otherwise. My current project, Draining the Infinite Metropolis: Engineering and the Banality of Disaster in Mexico City, is an ethnography and history of flood control engineering in modern Mexico City. It reveals why and how Mexico City continues to flood because - not in spite - of having one of the world's largest urban drainage systems, and how engineering has become a mode of governing disaster in the Anthropocene. I am currently developing a new project focused on climate change, speed, and the politics of transportation engineering in Mexico City.
Articles based on my research in Mexico City have appeared in American Ethnologist, Antipode, and (in translation) in Desacatos. I have published shorter articles for the public in The Washington Post and Logic, among other outlets, which can be found here. I am also working with Mexican colleagues to create an online, interactive spatial documentary about flooding, Las Huellas del Agua / Watermarks, which draws on this project. I have been asked to speak about the water crisis in Mexico City for international media outlets like the BBC, NPR, and RFl, as well as local news outlets like Animal Político, Pie de Página, El Economista, Diario 24 Horas, Radio Centro, and La Octava. I spend much of my free time working with community organizations struggling for workers’ rights and environmental justice.
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Curriculum Vitae
Biografía
Soy un profesor-investigador del Departamento de Sociología y Antropología de la Universidad de Texas en El Paso. Previamente era un investigador postdoctoral en la Facultad de Arquitectura de la Universidad de Princeton. Soy doctor en antropología sociocultural por la Universidad de Stanford y licenciado en ingeniería civil y estudios del desarrollo por la Universidad de Washington. Mis investigaciones se enfocan en la relación entre la ingeniería, el poder político, y la producción del medio ambiente en espacios urbanos. Actualmente estoy trabajando en un libro etnográfico y histórico sobre las obras del drenaje moderno en la Zona Metropolitana de la Ciudad de México, especialmente el Sistema de Drenaje Profundo, y su relación al crecimiento urbano de la misma de los años 1940 a la fecha. Mis artículos han sido publicado en Antipode, Logic Magazine, the Washington Post y American Ethnologist. Mi artículo en American Ethnologist fue traducido a español y publicado posteriormente en Desacatos. He dado entrevistas sobre mis investigaciones para una multitud de medios Mexicanos y extranjeros, incluyendo BBC, NPR, RFl, Animal Político, Pie de Página, El Economista, Diario 24 Horas, Radio Centro y La Octava.