I am a native northeast Ohioan, proudly born a Buckeye, adopted now as a Scot. As a faculty member, I feel fortunate to work in a setting close to family, but in a career that has taken me to different places.
I joined the Wooster faculty in 2008. I spent a year as a visiting faculty member at Wooster before moving into a tenure track position. Since that time, I have taught a wide range of classes at all levels, from First-Year Seminar to our Department’s 100-level and upper level courses for our majors. Each year, I really enjoy teaching a variety of courses, because it keeps me professionally fresh, engaged, and driven to be my best pedagogical self. At Wooster, the teacher-scholar model is alive due to our commitment to mentored undergraduate education and to our faculty research leaves program. Faculty research is so intertwined with our teaching because our research interests (and generated data) are brought into all our courses. My research interests include the tectonic evolution of the Sevier and Laramide orogenies of the western U.S. and superimposed pre-Basin and Range extension, with special emphasis on these geologic events in Utah. My students and I have worked on a variety of structural and sedimentologic problems in central Utah over the years, and it is a real joy to take students into the field each summer to show them the Utah that I have come to know so well.
Prior to joining the faculty at Wooster, I taught at Muskingum University for three years. But Muskingum was not my first time in a classroom. I started teaching decades ago as a middle school Earth and life science teacher in Twinsburg, OH. Those experiences in middle school were crucial in forming my teaching philosophy, for providing me with amazing experiences with students, and for shaping my views on diversity and inclusion in educational settings. After public school teaching, I continued my education at The Ohio State University for my M.S. and Ph.D. It was at OSU that I was introduced to geologic mapping, and I found an academic love – field camp – that has not left me to this day. I started teaching at OSU’s field camp as a teaching assistant while in graduate school, and I have continued that relationship with them in the summers as an instructor for many years. It was also while I was at OSU that I was able to participate in several ocean drilling programs to Antarctica and the North Atlantic Ocean (IODP, CRP3, and ANDRILL), from which I have taken practical insight into my Muskingum and Wooster classrooms.
In my free time, I enjoy doing many things – but several in particular stand out above the rest. I like attending college sporting events and watching sports on TV. I also find relaxation in exercising — lifting, hiking, and biking — and in reading nonfiction, typically titles on teaching pedagogy or athletic leadership and team building.
Education
- Ph.D., Geological Sciences, The Ohio State University
- M.S., Geological Sciences, The Ohio State University
- M.A.T., Secondary Education, Kent State Education
- B.S., Geology and History, Mount Union University