A long-time student of culture and its material artifacts, I have spent the past forty-five years examining the manner in which people have created American landscapes.  My research perspectives include landscape history, especially the evolution of infrastructure such as roads and highways where economic, social, and political processes intersect; landscape interpretation, especially the sequencing of construction relative to available technologies; and understanding landscape, especially the matter of landscape symbolism and the meanings that people assign to landscape artifacts and the processes that create them.  My field-based research interests blend rural and urban contexts, especially within America’s Middle West, Appalachia, and Upland South.  Past work included examinations of the relationships between European immigrants, occupational preadaptation, and landscape construction; the social construction of sport and leisure places; and the creation of landscape symbol vocabularies.  I am currently working on projects relating to the spectacular role of the road—in its many guises and through its many commercial, political, and technical patrons—and the shaping influence roads bring to landscapes.  Completed projects include The National Road and A Guide to the National Road, two edited books that were supported by funding from the Pioneer American Society and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a book co-edited with Warren Hofstra entitled The Great Valley Road: Shenandoah Valley Landscape from Prehistory to the Present.  Current research continues the road landscape theme with a project on America’s first trans-Appalachian highway, the Limestone-Maysville Road.