Biographical Statement

I am a social scientist with graduate training in both sociology and anthropology and more than three decades of experience in higher education. I hold a B.S. magna cum laude in Sociology (with a minor in Psychology) and an M.A. in Sociology from Texas Woman's University, and I am ABD in Cultural Anthropology at Texas State University, where my doctoral research focused on climate change, food production, and institutional and social inequities in rural communities. I also studied for two years at Texas Wesleyan Law School (2002 to 2004) and hold an A.A. in Art from Austin Community College, the institution where I now teach.

I have taught at both two-year and four-year institutions across Texas and New York, and I have been a member of the Austin Community College faculty since 2006. Over the course of my career, I have taught a wide range of courses in sociology and anthropology, including Introduction to Sociology, Social Problems, American Minorities, Cultural Anthropology, Sociology of Health and Medicine, Human Sexuality, and Race and Ethnic Relations. I have also served in a number of leadership roles at ACC, including President, Vice President, and Representative of the Adjunct Faculty Association.

My academic interests center on social inequality, identity, culture, community development, climate change, and social justice. I am especially interested in how institutions, policies, and social structures shape opportunities and outcomes for individuals and communities. My current research focuses on rural central Texas, examining local resistance to data centers, nuclear site production, and land use in food production.

Beyond teaching and research, I have been actively engaged in professional and community service throughout my career. I served as President of the Association for Humanist Sociology and currently serve as Vice President/President Elect of AFAEC, the largest faculty organization at ACC. I have also taken on a range of leadership, mentoring, and shared governance roles across the college. I am the editor/author of Sociology and Your World, a text exploring how culture, power, and privilege shape everyday social life (see publications page for more).

Whether in the classroom, through research, or in service to my community, my goal has always been to encourage thoughtful inquiry, critical thinking, and a deeper understanding of the social forces that shape our world. I believe sociology and anthropology offer powerful tools for understanding both our differences and our shared experiences, and I remain committed to making those perspectives accessible and meaningful to a broad audience.

“Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”
—Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“Those who have the good fortune to be able to devote themselves to scientific pursuits must be the first to place their knowledge at the service of humanity.”
—Karl Marx, quoted by Paul Lafargue (1890/1972)