Interdisciplinary academic, writer, and artist.

This website merges my disciplines of art, research, teaching, and writing. It was initially conceived as a repository for my doctoral research, visual ethnography, and linked from my dissertation. It has grown to contain my revived art marking practices. Please see my artist statement here.

Who am I?

I am a researcher and educator with 20+ years of experience designing and implementing a wide variety of learning and leadership programs. I am currently the Program Director of the Outdoor Leadership MA at Prescott College. I teach graduate students and sit on doctoral committees. I encourage students to break through creative barriers and examine place, meaning, and experience beyond the confines of Cartesian dualism. See this recent book chapter on the curriculum of my favorite course to teach based on my research presented on this website: Embodiment and More-than-human Topographies: A Praxis Tool for Reconfiguring Sense of Place in the Anthropocene in Online and Limited-Residency Higher Education.

I am a writer and visual artist, a degree path I chose when I was 16 years old, graduating from high school early. My work as an artist, or rather, my compulsion and drive to create, shapes my work as an educator, leader, and direction in life. I advocate for others to open their creative processes and explore ways art has no boundaries, both to uplift and bring hope amidst the complexities of this time.

As an academic, I am an interdisciplinary qualitative researcher with an emphasis on environmental humanities, sustainability, and new materialist methodologies. My work examines more-than-human agency through an embodied awareness of place, confronting both anthropogenic and colonizing narratives. I am not tied to the academy, however, and believe the work of academics can make far more of a difference beyond the ivory tower. I like to believe I’m a critical thinker with the ability to understand and synthesize complex information into effective and engaging strategies that support learning objectives and outcomes (or so says my cover letter, I can’t believe we have to succumb to such self-aggrandizing and empty descriptions this day in age!). I earned my Ph.D. in Sustainability Education, MA in (adventure) Education (an earlier iteration of the program I now direct), and a BFA in Painting and Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCUArts).

I am a former outdoor/adventure educator and rock climber. I was lucky to see the world many times over through my work with World Challenge Expeditions and graduate research. Those experiences have shaped me into the educator, researcher, and artist that I am today.

Email: brittlestar.art@gmail.com