In July of 2023, I became the Head of School at The Marylhurst School - a proud Preschool-8th grade progressive, independent school - after serving as Dean of the College of Education at Pacific University for nine years. I have a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in Reading, Writing, and Literacy as well as a master’s degree in Literature from the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College. Before pursuing my Ph.D., I taught middle school language arts and social studies. While in my Ph.D. program, I worked with middle and high school teachers in West Philadelphia to design inquiry and project-based learning curricula as well as developed a reverse-mentoring program where high school students mentored pre-service teachers on how to be effective urban teachers. More recently, I've collaborated with K-12 public and independent schools to design and implement inquiry and project-based learning. I am passionate about creating rich, meaningful, real-world focused learning environments for and with students as well as collaborating with teachers to support them in doing the same. I also work with soccer academies and teams on how to utilize neuroscience in coaching and player development. I am past-President of the Oregon Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and past-Western Region Representative for the Advisory Council of State Representatives for the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Before coming out West, I worked at Arcadia University, first as a faculty member, then as the Chair of the Education department, and finally as interim Dean of the School of Education.