Prior to my time at Syracuse University, I earned a degree in Social Foundations of Education (M.A., Oklahoma State University) and a degree in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing (B.A., University of Missouri-Columbia). At Syracuse, I have also earned a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Women and Gender Studies and a Certificate of University of Teaching from The Graduate School. In public, private, and community organizations, I have worked as a middle and high school humanities teacher, an academic lead and academic administrator, a tutor, a director of a transitional program for refugee youth, grant writer, and curriculum writer and developer. Through these experiences, I embrace a trauma-informed, place-based, culturally responsive, and contemplative pedagogical practice.
In my doctoral studies, I utilize an interdisciplinary and qualitative inquiry approach to peace studies, contemplative studies, ecojustice and ecofeminist studies, critical museum and memory studies, postcolonial studies, teacher education, and anti-racist and decolonial education. My work has appeared in the journals Educational Abundance, the Journal of Peace Education, and Vitae Scholisticae: The Journal of Educational Biography, as well as two peer-reviewed book collections, Educating for Peace through Countering Violence: Strategies in Curriculum and Instruction and the forthcoming Pilgrimage Phenomenology Project.
At Syracuse University, I served for two years as a teaching assistant in EDU 310: The American School, and in Fall 2024 began co-facilitating as an instructor of record in the Intergroup Dialogue Program course "Dialogue on Racism and Anti-Racism." I also serve as a Teaching Mentor for The Graduate School, an elected graduate voting member of the School of Education Assembly, and Co-President of the School of Education Graduate Student Council. In Spring 2025, I was awarded Syracuse University's Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award.