My research, teaching, and practice focus on the world political economy of labor and the environment, with particular attention to power, (in)equality and (in)justice, social divisions of labor, and just transitions. My work programmatically fuses academic research with political practice. I received the 2024 John N. Stern Distinguished Professor Award of the College of Liberal Arts.
At the undergraduate level I teach international relations, international political economy, and political economy/ecology with a focus on ecosocial justice across space and time. I have also taught capstones on global labor politics and just transitions. At the graduate level I teach The Politics of the Environment and Sustainability, Governance of the World Political Economy, Theories of International Relations, International Environmental Politics, Foundations of Environmental Justice, as well as special seminars on social regulation, green political economy and just transitions.
My most recent books are Just Transitions: Promise and Contestation (Cambridge University Press, 2023), The Palgrave Handbook of Environmental Labour Studies (2021, coedited with Nora Räthzel and David Uzzell) and Just Transitions: Social Justice in the Shift Towards a Low-Carbon World (Pluto Press, 2020, coedited with Edouard Morena and Dunja Krause). During that same period of time I have also published several articles and chapters on just transition, work and ecosocial politics, labor environmentalism, and environmental labor studies.
As a collaborator of Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces to Climate Change I wrote Labour Unions and Green Transitions in the USA: Contestations and Explanations (2019). As joint coordinator I completed various projects with the Just Transition Research Collaborative (UNRISD). With respect to production and consumption I was active in the Political Economy Working Group of the Systems of Sustainable Consumption and Production of Knowledge Action Network of Future Earth. As a member of the Just Transition Listening Project Research Group I co-created the project and co-authored the Workers and Communities in Transition: Report of the Just Transition Listening Project (2021). The Research Group has now started the Critical Minerals and Metals Just Transition Listening Project, funded by the Sloan Foundation.
I co-convene the Planetary Justice Task Force of the Earth System Governance Project which has completed a special issue of Environmental Politics on Planetary Justice and is organizing a global series of webinars on Exploring Planetary Justice. I jointly coordinate the Just Transition and Care Initiative and co-authored its report, Just Transition and Care: An International Inquiry. I am participating in the Global People’s Platform for Socio-Ecological Transformation where I am a member of the Transformative Just Energy Transitions Working Group. I continue to pursue research on the environmental politics of labor unions, the labor politics of environmental organizations, the nature of work in ecosocial politics, global union organizations, and ‘hidden figures’ in global environmental and labor politics.
At Colorado State University I co-led the creation of the Graduate Certificate in Political Economy. I am a founder and co-director of the Center for Environmental Justice at Colorado State University, co-leading the creation of its Graduate Certificate in Environmental Justice. During 2025 and 2026 I led the Center’s global conference on environmental justice. The Center was the southern anchor of the Mountains and Plains Thriving Communities Collaborative (EPA Region 8 Environmental Justice Technical Assistance Center, led by Montana State University) of which I was a co-founder and a member of the Executive Committee. The funding of this and the other Technical Assistance Centers was rescinded in early 2025. I also served as a member of the Worker Subcommittee of the Colorado Just Transition Advisory Committee.
I am active in the public affairs of Colorado State University, serving as the treasurer of AAUP/AFT CSU- Fort Collins. In that capacity I am involved in a continuous effort to raise the collective voice of all workers, including research and teaching workers, at CSU.