He received his Ph.D. from the Earth and Environmental Sciences Program at the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY). His teaching and research interests interests span political economic geography, environmental justice, racial capitalism, Asian/American Studies, geographical information science (GISc), and the carceral state. His work engages what he calls the racial environmental state as a contradictory source of both foreclosure and possibility in relation to antiracist struggles for social and environmental justice. He is currently developing a manuscript in which he examines the fundamental relationships between systems of racial and environmental knowledge, governance, and community organizing, both within and against state.