My research interests are in U.S. history in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the American West and Middle West, American Indian history, and cultural history. My dissertation, "Resounding Voices: American Indians and Audio Technology, 1890–1970," examines Native American use of phonographs and radio, including ethnographic records, commercial records, and broadcasting, as well as Native listenership. I have published short forays into some of this material in California History (JSTOR) and on the Sounding Out! blog.

I am also a writer. My first book, Ghost Dances: Proving Up on the Great Plains, was published by Little, Brown in 2012. My essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in South Dakota History quarterly, the New York Times, the Iowa Review online, High Country News, Lapham's Quarterly online, the Rumpus, dislocate, and other publications. In recent years, I have joined the collective M12, which focuses on arts and rural places, as an outlet for both creative energy and public history.

I received a B.A. from Amherst College in 2002 and an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University in 2009.