I am an anthropological archaeologist interested in landscape and agricultural systems in Southeast Asia. I received my PhD in Anthropology from the University of Hawaii-Manoa in 2010 and was hired by the University of Guam as an assistant professor at the same year. In 2013 I joined the Department of Anthropology, University of California-Los Angeles.
My research focuses on the relationships between Southeast Asian agricultural complexes, self-organization, and the landscape. My investigations among the Ifugao of the northern Philippines integrates ethnography, ethnohistory, spatial analysis (through Geographic Information Systems), and archaeology. I am also engaged with the local community, through the Save the Ifugao Terraces Movement (SITMo – a local grassroots NGO whose main objective is to preserve the rice terraces and help document Ifugao intangible heritage) in developing conservation plans for their upland rice terraces. My long-term research goals include documenting Southeast East Asian agricultural systems and contribute to intensification debates utilizing Southeast Asian production systems as case studies.