My area of teaching and research is Latin America. Although my major research area has been Argentina, my courses tend to focus more on Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. I also teach thematic courses on public health in Latin America and on the Cold War. In the Spring of 2011, I will offer a new course, "From Sugar to Oil," which will examine the history of commodities in the Western Hemisphere.

I am the author of Madness in Buenos Aires: Patients, Psychiatrists, and the Argentine State, 1880-1983. My current research concerns the history of military conscription in Argentina. I am especially interested in how young men resisted and evaded the requirement to serve in the military. In doing this research, I have been able to learn about how the draft worked in other places, including Bolivia, Mexico, French colonial Africa, Turkey, Persia, and Chile. 

I have also been working on a history of the obesity epidemic in Latin America. This project emerged from work that I did with an undergraduate history major in the summer of 2010.