Research

I work as an associate professor at Maine Maritime Academy (USA), a research adviser for the Agriculture and Forestry Research & Development Centre for Mountainous Regions (Vietnam), an adjunct faculty member at the Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry (Vietnam), and an adjunct faculty member at the Asian Institute of Management (Philippines).

I was a U.S. Fulbright Scholar in 2021/22 (Vietnam) and a U.S. Fulbright Specialist in 2024 (Indonesia).

I earned an M.A. in geography from Simon Fraser University (Canada) and an M.Sc. in international ecological agriculture from the University of Kassel (Germany). My Ph.D. in geography came from the University of Hawaii at Manoa (USA) and was focused on the construction of identity and meaning in the table grape and wine clusters of Japan. Subsequently, I worked for five years as an assistant professor of geography at Mayville State University (USA).

My academic interests include:

• Cultural, environmental, and tourism geographies
• Climate change, indigenous knowledge, gender, and sustainability in agriculture
• Asia-Pacific
• Geospatial technologies
• Low-altitude remote sensing using UAVs/drones and kites
• Experiential education and undergraduate research

My research has been supported by funding from the Fulbright Program, the US Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, the East-West Center, the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the Northeast Asia Economic Forum, the Taiwan Fellowship, ASIANetwork, the German Institute for Japanese Studies, the Tiny Beam Fund and Burning Questions Initiative, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Maine Humanities Council, the Maine Economic Improvement Fund, the NASA/Maine Space Grant Consortium, the Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education, the North Dakota Humanities Council, and the NASA/North Dakota Space Grant Consortium.

I have worked as a visiting scholar at research institutes and universities in Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam and was a TReND in Africa virtual collaborator with the University of Embu (Kenya).

Finally, through the support of the Maine Humanities Council, I am excited to be a World in Your Library speaker! I would be happy to travel to any public library anywhere in Maine and present to the general public on topics including “Vietnam today” and “What can rural America learn from rural Japan?”. Contact me for details.

I support free/libre and open-source software.