I am an editor and architectural historian whose research centres on how art, theatre, and landscape in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy relate to histories of environment and technology. 

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I am currently working on a book manuscript, Architecture, Technology, and the Forces of Nature in Granducal Tuscany, which explores how early modern architects and engineers reshaped a cultural imaginary of the natural world as a domain that could be conquered by technological intervention. By analyzing a range of media and domains of practice–from machine and theatre design, territorial management, civic architecture, drawing, and ornament–I consider how architects experimented with, challenged, and extended contemporary debates in mechanics and natural philosophy to shape developments in art and science. A second project positions early modern engineers as diplomats to chart how they mobilized the same political and economic networks that controlled the exchange of materials, resources, and labourers across seas and oceans in order to promote their expertise.

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I am currently an affiliated researcher at l'Université de Montréal and recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at McGill University. In addition to a Ph.D. in the history of art and architecture from Harvard University, I hold an M.A. from the University of British Columbia and a B.A. from McGill University. My research has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Societé et culture, the Kress Foundation, Villa I Tatti, the Medici Archive Project, and Sir John Soane's Museum Foundation.