Researcher Dedicated to Human Enthusiasm
Identifying the cultural metrics that guide human mobilities
Doctor Who. Geography-themed tattoos. The Grateful Dead. Geospatial analysis of cultural phenomena. Graceland. Veganism. Population stability. Baseball. Comics. What do these things have in common? They are all topics that I have researched in my career as a human geographer. At a cursory glance, it’s fair to beg the question: well, what exactly do you do? The thread that connects these seemingly disparate topics is human enthusiasm. I dedicate my career to understanding how humans develop enthusiasm, and how this influences their movements across (and beyond) planet Earth. I use both qualitative and quantitative methods to determine how and why certain factors influence humans to act, think, move, and spend their money a certain way. I conduct ethnographic interviews. I collect and summarize statistical data. I tell stories. I frequently publish my results. Most important of all, I make my results accessible across all audiences, not just those in academia. I am a firm believer in open source software, open access publication platforms, and open science.