The short version

• 20+ years in instructional design and software training, with my true home in academia
• 10+ years exploring virtual and online learning, student engagement, and now practical AI in the classroom
• Passionate about stronger student writing and clear, confident research communication
• Based in Johnson City, TN — originally from Lee County, Virginia

The longer version

My path into learning started with an English Literature degree from UVa-Wise, where my fascination with the written word took hold. My undergraduate thesis explored Lee Smith’s Fair and Tender Ladies and Smith’s use of eye dialect to capture Appalachian regional pronunciation.

I came back to school for a Master’s in Interdisciplinary Studies at East Tennessee State University, where I undertook a fairly radical study of snake-handling preachers and their levels of self-disclosure, a study that was both controversial and genuinely enlightening. I spent more than four years with those congregations and their worship practices; their story was compelling enough to eventually reach National Geographic’s Snake Salvation docuseries, where my study subjects were featured. My thesis is publicly available if you’d like to read it. (link)

Eight years of work as an instructional designer led me to pursue a doctorate in instructional design from the University of Memphis, where my UX and learning experience design research focused on culturally responsive mentoring and cultural inclusion in online learning. That work is online too, if you’re curious. (link)

Those threads (language, culture, how people learn, and who gets left out, etc.) still drive everything I do, now including how we bring AI into education without losing what makes teaching (and learning) human.

On a personal note: I’m from the hollers and hills of Lee County, Virginia, but these days I live in Johnson City, Tennessee.