I read, write, and teach at Loyola Marymount University, where I am currently Charles S. Casassa Chair and Professor of Philosophy. I am also an Affiliated Faculty member in Environmental Studies and in Irish Studies. At LMU I was the founding Director of the Environmental Studies Program and the founding Director of LMU’s Academy for Catholic Thought and Imagination, an interdisciplinary research institute that seeks to encourage intellectual dialogue at LMU, and to support faculty scholarship on a wide range of topics in the humanities, social sciences, arts, and sciences.

I completed my undergraduate studies at UCLA in between absences to live and study in Japan, travel, and engage in serial autodidactism. My graduate work began quite a bit later, after additional years spent living and traveling abroad, as well as time working as a climbing guide in the United States. I studied first at CSU, Long Beach and later, after another year off from university to climb and travel, at Boston College.

I’m a native of California, though I’ve traveled on six continents and lived, in very small towns and very large cities, on three. My family and I still travel several months a year, and try to do so on a low-carbon, low-cost, high-adventure, experience-rich model. We spend a fair bit of each year living out of tents, cabins, boats, trailers, and the like. I have a number of interests outside of academia. Climbing of all sorts has been an abiding passion in my life, and I’ve spent a great deal of time ascending and descending rock, ice, and snow. Other mountain-related pursuits developed organically from this passion, including skiing, distance running, backpacking, fly fishing, and similar activities. I’m also interested in poetry, literature, art, music, chess, history, science, and a great many other things. I find there’s no shortage of worthwhile endeavors to occupy my time.