I have struggled with a state of perpetual wanderlust since I was a child. Though I had never truly traveled until I was about eleven years old, I knew I needed to see more and be in the world differently than I had experienced. It was when I was in the 8th grade and took my first flight to New York, traveling through Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. in May 2002, that I could feel it to my core: I needed to travel. I have also loved photography and storytelling. 

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In elementary school, I won first place in photography for a program in San Diego called Reflections. I went on to compete at the district level. Meanwhile, in middle school, I started writing fervently, sharing stories of pain and anguish, joy, excitement, love, and so much more. Poetry filled my journals, one decorated with Van Gogh's The Café Terrace. It was in these moments that I knew I had to write; I needed to tell stories. 

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Somehow, and probably by no surprise, I ended up in research. Through a master's in sociology and a PhD in education, I started learning to conduct research, began exploring the social world, and became a research methodologist. I've dabbled in many things, including founding a nonprofit, The Dignified Learning Project, lecturing in sociology and education, and having been a humanities teacher during the height of COVID school closures, which changed radically my life.

My dream is to write books - magical realism, speculative fiction and sci-fi, poetry, nonfiction - essentially, all the things. In my research, I strive to tell stories that can help enact social change and bring about hope and joy. My research areas include critical disability studies, popular culture, and participatory action research for transformative change. In all I do, I aim to challenge dominant narratives, believing that the lived experience should be infused into all we do, as we often reject communities and those impacted as vital to the research process. As an educator and researcher who centers humanization in my work, community-engaged research is necessary for making true and sustainable change.

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I believe firmly in humanizing pedagogy, which means that we are whole people and not just academics, students, workers, or whatever else; that is only one element of who we are. Because of this, you will not only find my researcher, teacher, and academic self presented on this website, but also my artistic self. I am a woman who loves travel and adventure, who experiences severe and perpetual wanderlust, and who finds joy in photography, writing fiction and poetry, as well as substantial social commentary. You will find a wide range of my writing here, which includes: project updates, pieces on teaching and research, social commentary, other academic writing, as well as my fiction and poetry. Essentially, you find the ways in which I thread together wanderlust. 

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Welcome to The Wanderlust Threader. ​