Hello

Helping students explore the world through developing exceptional critical thinking and analysis skills has been the driving force behind all of my career and educational choices. For eleven years, I taught a range of students and courses, from Title IV Pre-kindergarten to entry high school freshman programs to Advanced Placement and Dual Enrolled Language and Literature courses. Currently, I am an adjunct assistant professor in the English, Education, and Media and Communications departments at Shenandoah University in Winchester, VA.

 

In 2011, I graduated from University of Mary Washington with a BA in English and immediately went on to earn my MA in Children’s Literature from Hollins University. My graduate thesis was “Storytelling: The Tradition, the Telling, and the Showing,” creatively and critically exploring the history, fundamentals, and application of storytelling.

​

In Fall 2023, I began my journey at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia to complete the Individualized Interdisciplinary PhD program. My proposal for admittance was titled, "Empathetic Educational Environments: Advancing Cultural Sensitivity of Trauma Through Storytelling in the Secondary-level English Classroom," which detailed coursework in the following departments: English, Education, Human Development, and Sociology. Though it's a very specialized focus of research, I hope my expertise can be a bit of an umbrella, covering the many facets of trauma and the power of story.

​