I’m a PhD candidate at George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution. As an urban planner by training, I leverage critical transportation studies to conceptualize car supremacy, an ideology used by car drivers to marginalize other road users in public forums and on public streets. Using a mixed methods approach – including critical discourse analysis, mobile participant observation, interviews, and surveys – I theorize about both the rhetorical devices adherents of the ideology car supremacy deploy to maintain power and the ways in which our existing community engagement practices have enabled an unjust modal hierarchy to persist at the expense of the public good. I also explore the peacebuilding potential of reimagining streets for connection, community, and care.
I have had the opportunity to teach a variety of undergraduate classes at GMU – in online as well as in-person formats, in intimate seminar-style electives as well as larger required courses, independently as well as in a co-teaching model, and in existing classes I have inherited as well as in new courses I have designed from scratch. I strive to cultivate supportive learning communities where my learning flows in all directions between students and me, and I focus on integrating interactive instruction methods that challenge my students to think critically, creatively, and reflectively.
During the 2024-2025 school year, I served as the graduate student representative on the Carter School Curriculum Committee and was an affiliate of the Program on Urban Peacebuilding. In my free time, I engage in advocacy efforts to promote peaceful, healthy public spaces in DC and support neighborhoods in pursuing safe streets initiatives.
(Photo credit: Connor McLaren with the SWBID)
