I am an intellectual historian who studies the uses, abuses, and understandings of the natural world in early modern science and medicine.

My first book, The Perfection of Nature, tells the history of Renaissance animal and human breeding projects that were imagined, articulated, and partially enacted. Currently, my research focuses on the history of bioprospecting, natural product extraction, and the early modern creation of the pharmaceutical industry.

I am Assistant Professor at Hamilton College and Director of Latin American Studies. I received my doctorate from Stanford University in 2018 and then returned to Central New York to my alma mater Cornell University as a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow in 2018. My work has been supported by Villa I Tatti - the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, the Mellon Foundation, and the Fulbright Foundation, among others.