Alex received his B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley and his M.A. from the Literary and Cultural Studies program at the University of Oklahoma. His previous research analyzed how the domestic reformer Catharine Beecher combined religion and physiology to provide health advice for nineteenth-century American women. He has also examined how the turn-of-the-twentieth-century field of household bacteriology enabled housewives to test their homes and communities for microbes using kitchen equipment. As he prepares for his dissertation, Alex hopes to explore the relationships between risk, domestic space, and the family. His other interests include public health, home economics, natural theology, children’s literature, and the history of capitalism.