I am currently a participant in the Morning Alters Practitioner and Teacher Training certificate program where I am probing the nexus of nature, creativity, and ritual. My research has been focused on contemplative practices in higher education and trauma & culturally informed teaching. I am intrigued by the challenges and subtleties of cultivating meaningful human relationships and fostering this dialogue between teacher and student in a community of learners, with an emphasis on ways that art can be a vehicle for this work. As a coach and mentor to rising artist-teachers in MICA's MAT program, I endeavor to discover, alongside my students, their strengths and gifts and help them to celebrate the gifts that they possess. Hopefully, they in turn will encourage their students in the same way.

After a decade of visual and intellectual investigation through 16mm film as a documentary and public affairs film editor, my attention turned to human development and the arts, and current pedagogical issues and choices. I felt compelled to build upon my personal interests and roots in the visual arts (BA in Studio Art, University of Maryland), and to extend them into the realm of teaching and service. Graduating from the MAT program at MICA in 1998, I have taught in a variety of elementary, middle, and high school settings, both public and private, as well as MICA's Young People's Studios program for many years. I have been on the faculty of the Master of Arts in Teaching program since AY07 teaching Introduction to Teaching, Art and Human Development, and mentoring and supervising interns and student teachers in all three practicum courses. I have presented at state and national art education conferences, as well as the Progressive Ed Summit in Baltimore, on mindfulness practices in education.