SELECTED TEACHING APPOINTMENTS:

  • Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO
  • Interim Division Director (Spring 2014-Present)
  • Associate Professor (Fall 2008—Present)
  • Assistant Professor (Fall 2003-2008)
  • Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY
  • Visiting Assistant Professor: Joint Appointment English and Environmental Studies (2000-2003)
  • Columbia University, New York, NY
  • Core Curriculum Instructor: Contemporary Civilizations (Political Philosophy) (1998-2000)

EDUCATION:

Columbia University, Graduate School of Arts and SciencesNew York, NY

Ph.D.American Literature, October 2002

M.Phil.American Literature, March 1996

M.A.Literature, May 1993

Columbia University, Columbia College, New York, NY

B.A. British Literature (Cum Laude) 1991

FELLOWSHIPS, AWARDS, HONORS:

National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (2008)

Charles Ryskamp Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies (2008)

Dibner History of Science Fellowship, The Huntington Library (2008)

Nominee: Bancroft Dissertation Award—2002 (Columbia University)

Robert K. Wark Fellow, The Huntington Library (Summer 2002)

President's Dissertation Fellowship (Columbia University, 1998-1999)

President's Fellowship (Columbia University, 1993-1998)

Legacy’s Society for the Study of American Women Writers Best Conference Paper Award (2012)

PUBLICATIONS:

Books

“Good Observers of Nature”: American Women and the Scientific Study of the Natural World, 1820-1885. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2007.

“Women and Science 1830-1940: A Primary Sourcebook.” General Editor, co-edited with Martha Richmond (In Progress, Pickering and Chatto Press)

Edited Volume

America’s Darwin: Darwinian Theory and U.S. Literary Culture. Athens: University of Georgia Press (forthcoming Spring 2014)

Articles

“Woman and Scientific Correspondence Networks” The Edinburgh Companion to Nineteenth-Century American Letters and Letter-Writing (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, forthcoming 2016)

“Evolutionary Narratives: Darwin’s Botany and American Periodical Literature” in Darwin Inspired Learning, edited by Carolyn Boulter, Michael Reiss, Dawn Sanders (Sense Publishers, U.K., 2015)

“Criminal Botany: Progress, Degeneration, and Darwin’s Insectivorous Plants” in American’s Darwin: Darwinian Theory and U.S. Culture (University of Georgia Press, 2014)

“Introduction: Textual Responses to Darwinian Theory in the U.S. Scene,” with Lydia Fisher, in American’s Darwin: Darwinian Theory and U.S. Culture (University of Georgia Press, 2014)

“Botanical Smuts and Hermaphrodites: Lydia Becker, Darwin’s Botany, and Education Reform” Isis, 104:2 (2013): 250-277.

“The Return to the Primitive: Evolution, Atavism, and Socialism in Jack London’s The Call of the Wild.” Critical Insights: Nature and the Environment, edited by Scott Slovic (Ipswich, MA: Salem Press, 2012).

“Of Spiders, Ants, and Carnivorous Plants: Domesticity and Darwin in Mary Treat’s Home Studies in Nature.” In Coming Into Contact: Explorations in Ecocritical Theory and Practice, edited by Annie Merrill Ingram, Ian Marshall, Daniel J. Phillipon, and Adam Sweeting (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2007): 239-49.

“Mary Treat.” In EarlyAmerican Nature Writers: A Biographical Encyclopedia, edited by Daniel Patterson (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008).

“Aldo Leopold.” In Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics, edited by Carl Mitcham, v. 2 (New York: MacMillan Reference Books, 2005):1001-03

“Mary Treat.” In Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics, edited by Carl Mitcham, v. 3 (New York: MacMillan Reference Books, 2005): 1743-45.

“Introduction” and “Notes” to Call of the Wild and White Fang, by Jack London (New York: Michael J. Fine, 2003): xiii-xxvi; 293-297.

“‘The Noble Designs of Nature’: God, Science, and the Picturesque in Susan Fenimore Cooper's Rural Hours.” In Susan Fenimore Cooper: New Essays on Rural Hours and Other Works, edited by Rochelle Johnson and Daniel Patterson (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001):169-90.

Digital Humanities Project:

“Mapping Correspondence: Women and Informal Scientific Networks” (web-based archival digital mapping project (Under construction)

Reviews:

“From Eve to Evolution: Darwin, Science, and Women’s Rights in Gilded Age America.” By Kimberly Hamlin. National Council on Science Education. (website)

“Clandestine Marriage: Botany and Romantic Culture.” By Theresa M. Kelley. Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment 20:3 (2013): 698-99.

“‘Our Sister’s Keepers’: Nineteenth-Century Benevolence Literature by American Women.”CHOICE. 43: 6 (February 2006): 1018.

“Reading the Roots: American Nature Writing before Walden.” Journal of Agricultural History. 79: 4 (Fall 2005): 501-02.

INVITED TALKS and SELECTED CONFERENCE PAPERS:

Invited Talks:

DENVER BOTANIC GARDEN
PUEBLO LIBRARY

Roundtable:“Interdisciplinary Environmental Teaching Ideas and Innovations”Culture, Politics, and Climate Change: An International Conference, University of Colorado, Boulder, September 15, 2012.

Roundtable: “Closing Reflections on SSAWW 2012.” Society for the Study of American Women Writers, October 2012.

“The ‘Irritable Power’ of Carnivorous Plants: Mary Treat, Charles Darwin and Floral Metaphors in the Evolutionary Narrative.” Royal Linnean Society of London, London, UK. September 2009.

“Dangerous Liaisons: Darwin's Carnivorous Plants and the Language of Flowers.” University of North Carolina, Wilmington, Evolution Learning Community Lecture Series, Wilmington NC. November 2008.

“Narratives of Empire, Elegies on Loss: Literary Perspectives Rivers and Watersheds.” Boulder Creek Watershed Initiative, Boulder CO. April 24, 2007.

Conference Papers

“Reading the Environment in(to) the Archive: A Roundtable Discussion” Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ALSE) Conference, Lawrence KS, June 2013

“Mapping Correspondence: Women Plant Collectors and the Harvard Botanists, 1860-1900.” History of Science Society (HSS) Conference, Boston, November 2013

PANEL AT ISHP

“Gender and the Study of Science: Women Plant Collectors and the Harvard Herbarium. History of Science Society Conference, November 2012

“Plant Smuts and Hermaphrodites: Lydia Becker and the Strange Case of Lychnis diurna.” Society for the Study of American Women Writers Conference, Philadelphia, PA. October 2009.

“Use or Preservation: A Darwinian View of Late Nineteenth-Century American Landscapes.” American Society for Environmental History, Tallahassee FL. March 2009.

“Dear Mr. Darwin: American Women and the Evolutionary Narrative.” Transatlantic Women: Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers in England, Oxford UK. July 2008.

“Post-Darwinian Flower Fables: The “Irritable Power” of Carnivorous Plants.” Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment Conference, Spartanburg, SC. June 2007.

“Teaching the Environment through the Humanities.” Panel Organizer and Chair. New Directions in the Humanities Conference. Columbia University, New York NY. February 2007.

“From Flower Poems to Carnivorous Plants: Mary Treat, Sophie Herrick, and Popular Science Writing in 19th Century America.” Society for the Study of American Women Writers Conference, Philadelphia PA. November 2006.

“’Very innocent food’: Susan Cooper and 19th Century Sciences.”Society for the Study of American Women Writers Conference, Philadelphia PA. November 2006.

“The Pressure of Hidden Causes: Beauty, Utility, and Goethe’s Theory of Colors in Margaret Fuller’s Summer on the Lakes, in 1843.” American Literature Association, Boston, May 2005.

Co-Organizer, Globalization and Environmental Justice Symposium. Sponsored by the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment. University of Arizona, Tucson AZ. September 2004.

“Conceiving of Nature: ‘Natural’ Concepts and Comparisons” Panel Chair. Globalization and Environmental Justice Symposium. University of Arizona, Tucson AZ. September 2004.

“’Do insects possess mind?’: Darwin and the Social Instincts in Mary Treat’s Home Studies in Nature.” Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, Boston MA. June 2003.

“Flora’s Fortune or Botany’s Appellations: The Language of Flowers and Botanical Instruction in Nineteenth Century Texts.” Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment Conference, Flagstaff AZ. June 2001.