Urban and Environmental history. Her first book, Nature Next Door: Cities and Trees in the American Northeast looks at the ways in which the twentieth-century growth of cities in the northeastern U.S. fostered the return of forests to the region. Her current project, Dead as Dirt: An Environmental History of the Dead Body looks at the ways in which corpses and corpse disposal practices have shaped American landscapes and ideas about nature. Her research on this project was supported by a membership in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study. Her other publications include articles in Environmental History, History and Theory, and the Radical History Review.