Professional and highly skilled educator, writer and editor with extensive experience in editing, writing instruction, curriculum development, instructional design, and educational technology integration. Known for strong focus on team collaboration and consistently achieving measurable results. Adaptable to changing needs and recognized for providing impactful and innovative solutions in educational settings. Excel in communication, content analysis, and analytical thinking. Extensive experience in crafting and executing educational and technical strategies that enhance learning outcomes Focused on team collaboration and consistently achieving impactful results. Strong in curriculum design and stakeholder engagement, known for adaptability and reliability.
Student writer training, presentation mentoring
I focused on recruiting, retaining, guiding, and professionalizing many students from underrepresented populations, domestic and international. My leadership style, concomitantly, is marked by active consultation and collaboration with all stakeholders regarding academic and social issues that generate experiential learning opportunities. I initiated the development of a now flourishing 2+3 Ma-PhD program for English graduate students that accelerated their graduate work and ensured timely and cost-effective graduation.
Both as faculty and as administrator, I have also extensively and regularly mentored junior faculty, particularly those from diverse cultural backgrounds, since I always prioritize and advocate for diversity, dialogue, contact zones, and pluralist learning and pedagogy.
As Women’s and Gender Studies department head at the University of Toledo, in addition to performing routine administrative activities (course scheduling, budget supervision, recruitment, and student and junior faculty advocacy, advising, and mentoring), I initiated and furthered curriculum re-design, interdisciplinary inquiry, and stakeholder engagement. I also created programmatic exchanges and collaborations with the Center for Women, Africana Studies, the Law and Social Thought program, and other humanities and social science departments, in addition to maintaining an active calendar of events and symposia. Engaging in community outreach and action research was especially at the core of my work at Toledo.
As program administrator at Valparaiso University, I focused on outreach and building national and international networks to benefit the program faculty and students
Selected publications:
Invited Judge for Global Undergraduate Awards (known as the Junior Nobel Prize), 2022
“After the House Burned Down,” nominated for Pushcart prize, 2021
Invited Research Supervisor for Scope Outreach, a national non-profit for engaging high school students in advanced research, 2021
Project 1: “Nature and the Environment – literature and film about climate change and floods” – student Aditi Thakur, Senior, Westview High
School, Portland Oregon, 2021
“Rowans, Oaks and Other Trees,” Finalist for the Saturday Evening Post Great American Stories Contest, October 2020
“Luvlee” longlisted for the Disquiet International Literary Prize, 2020
“Time to Go,” Finalist, Reynolds Price International Literary Awards, Center for Women Writers, April 2019
Love’s Garden, a novel (excerpt), Longlisted for the Disquiet International Literary Prize, 2019
Centrum Writers Residency, November 30 – December 20, 2020 (with scholarship)
Vermont Studio Center, July 2019 fellowship
“Flight,” Semi-finalist for Able Muse Write Prize, 2018
“Luvlee,” Finalist for Fourth River Folio Contest for Prose Prize, 2018
“Homage to Kafka,” First Runner-Up for the Los Angeles Review Flash Fiction contest, 2017-2018
Sarah Lawrence College Summer Writers’ Workshop fellowship, June 19-24, 2016
Southampton Writers’ Conference, SUNY fellowship, 2016
Sarah Lawrence College Summer Writers’ Workshop, 2012, merit scholarship
Folger Institute Faculty Seminar Award, May 2008
Huntington Library Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship, spring 1997
Midwest Faculty Fellowship, Regional Worlds Program of the Globalization
Project (Ford Foundation) at Chicago Humanities Institute, 1996-97
Lilly Foundation Diversity Incentive Grant, spring 1996