About

I am an educator and writer with nearly fifteen years experience teaching composition and literature, as well as a doctoral candidate in English/Literary Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. I also hold an MFA in Creative Writing, which deeply informs my commitment to process-based writing practices and pedagogy. I believe in the substance of language and the power of words.

My research interests lie at the intersection of pastoral and locational writing, theories of perception, aesthetics, media studies, and multimodal composition. My dissertation, The Ethics of Seeing,  explores how modern and contemporary writers—John Berger, Terry Tempest Williams, and Teju Cole—engage vision as a resistance to social and environmental injustice; this scholarship parallels my creative advocacy for the rich ecosystems of our Mojave Desert, as well as my poetry and prose. 

In The Ethics of Seeing, I’m drawn to the thresholds and possibilities of perception, to what is and is not included in one's field of vision, and to ways in which acts of seeing— such as bearing witness, photography, and artistic representation— can lead one into relation with both human and nonhuman life. My creative writing follows similar lines of attention, shaped by place, witness, and the felt weight of words. Both my scholarship and creative background inform my practice of teaching. Likewise, all of my scholarship and creative writing are informed by my practice of teaching.