I serve as Rice University’s sustainability officer, bridging the operations, administration, teaching, and research functions of the campus to achieve enterprise-wide environmental excellence. I seek to place Rice in the vanguard of university sustainability programs in the world. I lead the Office of Sustainability and its employees, setting university priorities and directing initiatives to ensure the successful achievement of sustainability goals throughout all campus settings. The team focuses on the UN SDGs; energy and water conservation, procurement, and analytics; utility planning and visioning; design and specification review; zero waste initiatives; green building; climate action planning; campus engagement; and so much more. I provide learning experiences for students and actively partner with faculty to develop, shape, and deliver curriculum. I engage with a broad range of communities and audiences to promote Rice’s sustainability initiatives, capabilities, and successes, and seek to leverage relationships to enhance opportunities and resources available for Rice’s sustainability programs. I develop partnership to enable Rice faculty, staff, and students to actively address sustainability concerns in Houston and beyond.I co-chair the Environmental Studies program. I also hold an appointment as Professor of the Practice of Environmental Studies in Sociology, and formerly as an Adjunct Lecturer in Civil and Environmental Engineering. As part of a program called Rice Living Lab, I teach a course that uses the campus as a laboratory for learning about sustainability.I take great joy in working with students and in doing what I feel to be soul-fulfilling work. As one of the most senior sustainability officers in higher education, I am committed to helping others in the field as much as I can, and to mentoring students interested in careers related to sustainability, urban and environmental planning, and utilities.

I serve as Rice University’s sustainability officer, bridging the operations, administration, teaching, and research functions of the campus to achieve enterprise-wide environmental excellence. I seek to place Rice in the vanguard of university sustainability programs in the world. I lead the Administrative Center for Sustainability and Energy Management (ACSEM), setting university priorities and directing initiatives to ensure the successful achievement of sustainability goals throughout all campus settings. I manage four full-time employees whose work focuses on energy and water conservation, procurement, and analytics; utility planning and visioning; design and specification review; and information technology and networking services. I provide learning experiences for students and actively partner with faculty to develop, shape, and deliver curriculum. I engage with a broad range of communities and audiences to promote Rice’s sustainability initiatives, capabilities, and successes, and seek to leverage relationships to enhance opportunities and resources available for Rice’s sustainability programs. I develop partnership to enable Rice faculty, staff, and students to actively address sustainability concerns in Houston and beyond.I co-chair the Environmental Studies program. I also hold an appointment as Professor of the Practice of Environmental Studies in Sociology, and as an Adjunct Lecturer in Civil and Environmental Engineering. As part of a program called Rice Living Lab, I teach a course that uses the campus as a laboratory for learning about sustainability.I take great joy in working with students and in doing what I feel to be soul-fulfilling work. As one of the most senior sustainability officers in higher education, I am committed to helping others in the field as much as I can, and to mentoring students interested in careers related to sustainability, urban and environmental planning, and energy.

I head the Administrative Center for Sustainability and Energy Management, a think-and-do-tank leading Rice’s campus sustainability program. My employees are responsible for utility procurement, utility analytics, carbon footprinting, and many aspects of campus energy and water management. My work bridges the administrative, operational, academic, research, and student life spheres of the campus. My typical tasks encompass green building (including over a dozen LEED projects), energy and water conservation, solid waste reduction, planning and visioning (esp. regarding utilities), teaching, student engagement, community engagement, communications, and connecting faculty and student research on sustainability with the Rice campus. I am particularly proud of having co-chaired the committee that created the minor in Environmental Studies, and for having played an important role in creating the new degree opportunities in Environmental Science. I co-chair the Environmental Studies program. I also hold an appointment as Professor of the Practice of Environmental Studies in Sociology, and as a Lecture in Civil and Environmental Engineering. As part of a program called Rice Living Lab, I teach a course each fall that is cross-listed between sociology and environmental studies that uses the campus as a laboratory for learning about sustainability. I take great joy in working with students and in doing what I feel to be soul-fulfilling work. As one of the most senior sustainability officers in higher education, I am committed to helping others in the field as much as I can, and to mentoring students interested in careers related to sustainability, urban and environmental planning, and energy.

My role with Knudson and Associates featured a combination of planning and economic development work. I played a lead role in developing the parks, recreation, and open space master plan for Fort Bend County, and preparing the "new starts" submission to the Federal Transportation Administration for the METRO Southeast light rail corridor. I worked closely with the development services team on modeling and creating economic development districts, such as Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones (TIRZs) and Public Improvement Districts (PIDs).

I worked for the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration as a researcher with an emphasis on sustainable business, innovation, and the then nascent field of e-commerce. I published numerous case study materials, technical notes, and articles as part of this position. I managed the creation of a special issue of the journal Interfaces that provided one of the most comprehensive views of sustainable business case studies and frameworks at that time. I organized a conference on innovation in honor of retiring faculty member Dr. Thomas C MacAvoy. I co-authored a paper that was recognized with the "Best Practice Award" at the 8th International Conference of the Greening of Industry Network. I participated in the development of some of Darden's first online educational tools, and served as a teaching assistant for an early model course that linked Darden with the business schools of the University of Michigan and the University of California at Berkeley in a blended online and in-class format.

As the Civil Engineer 1, I was responsible for reviewing water and sanitary sewer utility plans for new developments in Albemarle County, as well as managing the dedication of utility easements and infrastructure to ACSA. I also managed a major capital waterline project in Crozet, Virginia. Finally, I worked on the initial development of ACSA's utility infrastructure database, which provided the base for the implementation of a GIS system. From the fall of 1995 to the summer of 1997, I transitioned to a part-time role while I attended graduate school. As an intern, I focused primarily on development of the utility database.

I performed hydrologic analyses and corridor studies for highway projects, and provided extensive AutoCAD support for numerous projects in Virginia, Alabama, and the District of Columbia. I also offered lunchtime AutoCAD training sessions for fellow employees.