Most of my career has been focused on the political economy and political ecology of Brazil. I actually did my dissertation fieldwork in urban Brazil, where I studied urban change, sustainability, and democratic participation in planning in the favela (comunidade) of São Pedro in Vitória in the late 1990s and early 2000s.  Since then, I have co-published on the political economy (neoliberalization) of Brazilian higher education and the political ecology of the Samarco dam disaster.  I also joined a research group at Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCar) with Dr. Joao Reis da Silva Jr.

My other regional interest lies in East Asia (Modern China).  While I have not published extensively on this area, I have continued to study it since my first visit to Beijing in March 1988.  I was awarded a Fulbright to South Korea in 2010.  I was part of a USFIL grant at the East-West Center in 2012. I co-wrote the Asian Studies minor at Mercer University. I have been the chair of the University System of Georgia's Asia Council (2018-2022), and oversee the Asian Studies Minor at Columbus State University. I currently serve  as the president of the Asian Studies Development Program alumni board with the East-West Center.

More locally, I have become very interested in the political ecology of sea-level-rise (SLR) on the Georgia coastline.  I have published two articles on this front and joined the Georgia Climate Project to search for interdisciplinary solutions to this on-going climate change threat.  I like to take my undergraduate students on field studies to the Georgia Coast to explore its changing climate, ecotones, and geomorphology.