Standard-Setting & Emerging Technologies

I am fascinated by the ways that regulations structure our daily lives in unexpected ways. This has led me to research topics focused on how standard-setting processes are created, evolve, and respond to emerging technologies or new challenges.

I wrote about this in my dissertation on the evolution of food safety regulation (and more succinctly in a book chapter for a NC State agricultural engineering course, as well as a dissertation summary published in Enterprise & Society).

While working in the Grieger Lab at NC State, I contributed to several academic articles on the ways that adoption and acceptance of nanotechnology in food and agriculture is shaped by stakeholder perceptions and regulatory regimes. Much of this research focuses on the theory of responsible innovation, which is summarized well in this article, coauthored with Jennifer Kuzma, in Environmental Science & Policy.

I was lead author on a comparative study of three technological interventions to advance phosphorus sustainability, in which I conducted over 35 interviews and learned more wastewater treatment acronyms than I thought was possible to know. I am also particularly proud of this article that outlines regulatory regimes in urine diversion technology, which is strongly influenced by my friends and colleagues in the history of technology.