I’ve worn a number of hats over the years–graphic designer, desktop publishing, web designer and content manager, and until very recently, a university instructor, digital humanist, and digital information professional in university libraries. My current goal is to draw on my expertise in digital publishing, content management, and user design expertise, and combine them with my project management experience to create digital publications and products.
I was the Digital Scholarship Strategist in the Carnegie Mellon University Libraries, where I provided consultations an project management support for digital publishing and interactive scholarship, including digital humanities projects. I provided consultations to faculty and students developing Digital Arts and Humanities projects and have collaborated with faculty at CMU and elsewhere to create digital scholarship and resources including the Latin American Comics Archive and the Frankenstein Variorum. As co-founder and program manager the CMU Library Publishing Service, I managed the launch of two open-access academic journals and the transition of one from an academic publisher to a platinum-model open access journal hosted at CMU.
My research focus is popular culture, specifically speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror, and their related subgenres) as a megatext across literature and media, and SF fandoms as subcultures. I’m drawn to stories that blur the edges of genre forms and tropes. Those that interest me most filter social reactions to new scientific discoveries and technological innovation, depict alternative communities, and/or depict the ongoing fight for individual autonomy and agency, particularly along the blurred borders of ethnic, racial, gender, and sexual identities.
I have previously taught American literature at Longwood University and American Studies at Mary Washington University. Whenever possible I used science fiction, fantasy, and other genre literature and media in my courses. I taught with an cultural studies approach that considers these texts as discourses on and social responses to new technology, including anxieties involving artificial intelligence, surveillance culture, and energy scarcity. I draw from these genres to analyze the diversity of American experiences and to explore issues of power and identity including the marginalization of ethnicities, sexuality, and subcultures in dystopian and apocalyptic settings.