I arrived at Appalachian State in the summer of 2003.  Fresh from graduate school, I felt grateful simply to have a job – and I knew comparatively little about interdisciplinary teaching or research.   I also did not know that I had just found an intrepid band of educators, ready, even eager, to push pedagogic boundaries in the service of student learning.

I am now part of the band, and I do my best to push pedagogic boundaries, most often through collaborative research combined with experiential learning.  My teaching interests reflect an eclectic range of curiosities, gravitating toward food and culture, interdisciplinary methods, democracy, and Cuba.  When not devising impossibly difficult assignments for my students, I am at work on a book on the American occupation of Cuba from 1898-1902 (my background is history), as well as articles about my pedagogic practice.