People—Stories—Ideas

I am a researcher focused on exploring how people create worlds in and through stories based on shared understanding (ideas). I use both qualitative and quantitative methods in my approach to exploring how stories are embedded in everyday discourse and how those stories in turn cascade across socio-cultural networks both online and offline (and across time and space). In over 50 peer-reviewed publications I have examined how ideas are embedded in narrative (2023), how narratives are transformed as they pass through networks (2020), and how narratives and the ideas they contain create social realities (2012) as well as economic opportunities (2016; first three chapters).

In addition to my published work in academic journals and edited volumes (some of which have been translated into Chinese and French), I have been cited or interviewed in newspapers like the New York Times, the L.A. Times, and The Philadelphia Inquirer as well as public television documentaries and podcasts. I have been a Jacob K. Javits Fellow, a MacArthur Scholar, a fellow at the EVIA Digital Archive, a fellow with the Institute on Network Studies in the Humanities, and a senior researcher at UCLA’s Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics.

I am currently a professor at UL-Lafayette, where I teach courses on folklore, digital culture(s), text analytics, and game studies. I have served as a major advisor to students pursuing PhDs and MAs in folklore studies, literary studies, creative writing, Francophone studies, and architecture.

During a two-year leave of absence in 2020–2022, I was a professor of social informatics with the U.S. Army’s TRADOC. I was part of a team that developed a curriculum and a course for senior civilian and military leaders on the role that human information systems play in Information Advantage (IA) and Multi-Domain Operations (MDO). I also helped revise ADP 3-13 Information.