Director
Institute for Energy Solutions, Arizona Institute for Resilience
Associate Professor of Architecture & Sustainable Built Environments
College of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Planning
Associate Professor of Marketing
Eller College of Management
Associate Professor of Architectural Engineering
College of Engineering
The University of Arizona
Joint Appointee
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (2021-)
I have over ten years of experience teaching a wide range of courses including graduate research methods, research seminars, undergraduate marketing, technical courses on energy and high-performance buildling, and design studio. For example, over the past four years, a studio course organized around the Solar Decathlon Design Challenge has connected high-performance building priniciples with the potential of district energy.
To date, we've worked in four different Tucson neighborhoods to develop the potential of the SunBlock distributed district energy concept, which allows the scaled implementation of thermal energy generation and sharing while increasing equitable access to cooling.
My outreach focuses on advancing high-performance building practices. In early 2022, I began to serve as the Southwest representative for the Phius Alliance. In that role I am building community and strengthening networks across Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada to raise awareness and create action toward a proven, affordable solution for reducing the carbon pollution of buildings.
As a registered Phius CPHC®, I consult with builders, architects, and developers to increase performance, durability, comfort, and quality.
As an interdisciplinary researcher, I am best known for my work on taste. My article Taste Regimes and Market-Mediated Practice, co-authored with Zeynep Arsel, recentered the role of taste in consumption and has been the foundation of a growing stream of research in marketing and other fields. In addition to the article, which has been cited by Michel Callon and Alan Warde, among others, we published the 2020 book Taste, Consumption and Markets: An Interdisciplinary Volume.
In 2021, with Anissa Pomiès, we edited a special issue of the journal Consumption Markets & Culture with contributions from leading scholars in the field. Zeynep Arsel and I are currently revising a 2018 chapter originally titled "Social Distinction and Practices of Taste," for the second edition of the Consumer Culture Theory textbook.
In 2021, I became a distinguished fellow of the University of Arizona Center for University Education Scholarship. The fellowship is supporting the development of a new general education course called Building Climate Heroes.
Informed by concepts from Legitimation Code Theory, the course introduces students to building industry leaders, advancing the shared goals of increasing knowledge of buildings' outsize role in the climate crisis and equipping students with the ability and sense of agency to work towards a regenerative and reparative built environment.
Interviews & Media Mentions
