Research Projects

Forthcoming research publications, and projects that are submission-ready, include:

With two co-authors from Harvard University's Bloomberg Center for Cities, Quinton Mayne and Fernando Fernandez-Monge Cortazar, a research project critically framing and understanding the ecosystem of Local Systems of Public-Sector innovation (LSPSI) globally, attending to key dimensions and variables explaining local PSI systems and measuring varied definitions and approaches to innovation, administrative regime types, and leadership characteristics;
A national study considering communities' deployment of local-level land use regulation as a tool of urban geopolitics. In this study, I consider three pressing geopolitical contestations and analyze how communities deploy land-use controls as a response: (1) Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities and carceral infrastructures; (2) AI data centers, inclusive of their full social and environmental benefits and costs; and (3) border-wall and surveillance infrastructures like facial recognition towers;
With colleagues at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, an examination of ethics, deliberation, and patient decision-making processes for organ transplantation, examining the results qualitative survey data and a day-long facilitated deliberation sessions with patients and healthcare providers (this research will eventually be paired with a publicly accessible teaching case for use in undergraduate and graduate courses);
A research project, supported by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, titled “Bridging the Code Gap: Evaluating the Impact of Commercial vs. Residential Building Codes on Missing-Middle Housing in Colorado.” PIs include: Profs. Susan Daggett, Eric Holt, Stefan Chavez-Norgaard, and consultant Luke Teater. Our research team examines the costs of building-code variation and the threshold costs of International Residential Code (IRC) and International Building Code (IBC) designations as it relates to missing-middle housing production. We are part of the grantee cohort for the award titled “Building for the Future: Research on Modernizing Building Codes to Advance Housing Affordability and Climate Resilience” ($50k); and
A multi-year research project, supported by the University of Denver Center for Community Engagement to advance Scholarship and Learning (CCESL) and the Aspen Institute's Weave Awards, that explores how sustained support for relational community-engaged work might foster greater civic engagement, social trust, democratic accountability, and civic capacity ($225k).

Early-stage or ongoing research projects include:

A long-term project considering housing policy for affordability in the Denver and Colorado contexts, with an emphasis on "missing middle" housing for middle-income Coloradans and policy reforms for "gentle density," or contextually suited increases in density. Specific projects include research about administrative vs. discretionary review processes in Colorado and these processes' relationships with housing production and affordability, and an inquiry into the layered costs of federal compliance with varied affordable housing finance programs;
A research project working with University of Denver student Research Assistants (RAs) to analyze results from a housing simulator model sponsored by the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley. Our research team will model and analyze a wide array of possibly future public policies with a focus on these policies' impacts on housing production. The project will also critically consider the role of modeling technologies;
With Colorado Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) policy practitioner Victor Chen, an early-stage theoretical and empirical foray conceptualizing left-behindedness as a sociopolitical phenomenon. Specifically, in this research project we consider one Colorado region's efforts at progressive Local Economic Development in the face of deindustrialization, demographic decline, and a politics of neglect;
With Prof. Elliott Sclar, an archival investigation of the 1948 Nairobi capital plan, crafted by British and South African planners and a window into a world-historical moment and subjectivity; and
An engagement with the photography of South African photographer Mikhael Subotzky and his work on securitization in Johannesburg.