ABOUT ME
As a tenured associate professor of English at Texas A&M University-Texarkana, I teach courses in first-year composition, advanced writing, technical writing, grant writing, the teaching and peer tutoring of writing, composition studies, and research methods. I received my doctorate in English from Saint Louis University in 2012 and have been teaching writing at the college level since 2005. In addition to teaching, I have nearly a decade of experience coordinating university learning and writing centers. My primary research interest lies in empirical explorations of student veterans’ transferability of military writing practices to college writing practices as they repatriate from military service to college classrooms. I have presented at several national conferences (including CCCC, NCTE, and FYE) and have published my work in the collection, Generation Vet: Composition, Student-Veterans, and the Post-9/11 University (Utah State University Press) and in the veterans special collection of Composition Forum (Fall 2013). I serve as co-editor of the Journal of Veterans Studies, the first journal dedicated to interdisciplinary work with student veterans. My other research interests include rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement, writing pedagogy in the Renaissance, innovative English Language Arts pedagogies in the teaching of preservice educators, and the experiences of military veteran caregivers in the US and abroad. Currently, I am working on a mixed-methods study investigating student veterans’ integration of prior military knowledge and experience in college writing courses beyond first-year composition. In 2017, I was named a Fellow for the Elizabeth Dole Foundation to advocate for military veteran caregivers in the state of Texas. I'm also one-half of the podcast, Dear Student.
I am the proud wife of a retired combat Marine and daughter of two retired Air Force veterans.
EDUCATION
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
Texas A&M University - Texarkana 08/13 - present
Associate Professor of English (tenured eff. AY 2019-2020)
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2007 - 2012
Saint Louis University
Ph.D., English (Rhetoric & Composition)
Dissertation: "The Experiences of Marine
Student Veterans in Undergraduate
Composition Courses: A Phenomenological
Study." (available on ProQuest)
University of La Verne 08/11-05/13
Adjunct Professor, Writing
Fontbonne University 08/07-12/08
Lecturer, English & Communications
Lindenwood University 06/07-12/08
Adjunct Professor, College of Individual Education
2003 - 2007
University of Missouri - St. Louis
M.A., English (American Literature)
1999 - 2003
University of Missouri - St. Louis
B.A., English (Magna cum laude)
Certificate, Pierre Laclede Honors College