I’m a lifelong learning and development specialist with a passion for creating impactful, actionable knowledge-mastery programs. As an alt-ac specializing in content and curriculum development, I connect missions with messaging. 

Fluent in blending VLM, ILT, SDL,* and e-learning modules for successful launch across nonprofit sectors, global tech verticals, and academic institutions worldwide.

*Virtually led trainings, instructor-led trainings, self-directed learning

What exactly is a medievalist doing as an L&D specialist? Welcome to my inner world!

My work centers on contemplating our apophasis each day. At first blush, our knowledge gaps might seem like shortcomings, even failures. What I see in those knowledge gaps is proof of humanity’s most incredible gifts: curiosity, imagination, being able to reflect on the realization that what we do know is how much we don’t know about something. Or everything. Both, or maybe neither. It also lets us wonder if we might be asking too much? Too many questions? Or would it be that we’re not asking enough questions? The wrong questions altogether?

People wonder. They wonder, where is Cleopatra’s tomb? How the hell did we lose track of that? And when will people stop talking about Yellowstone? It’s just Kevin Costner, people. Relax.

People wonder. They wonder, how do we keep track of an abstract computation in our head with symbolic simulations? And why does a para metaprogramming mechanism like C++ have compile-time template metaprogramming? Oh, and will anyone ever definitely prove that 53 plus 47 equals 100?

There’s only one question we’re all dancing around.

The answer is of course 42. We already know that. Even those of us who don’t, do. It’s a fine number, nothing wrong with it. Elegant. Simple like the universe. Looks nice and tidy written on the paper there.

Or on a sticky note in your cubicle reminding you that time off is selfish and should only be taken with respect to how it impacts others. Especially your manager, who successfully checks that butts are in their seats and not taking more than the allotted 32 seconds per bathroom break. As a self-preservational psychological measure, I assume that this does not include the number of seconds it takes to silently recite “Happy birthday” as you wash your hands.

These are also the people who stroll in pi hours late with an iced coffee with unmelted ice still in it to subtly reinforce how little they care about your time until it impacts theirs.

Nice and tidy, that 42.  It fits on those mini Post-Its that can’t hardly fit anything else.

But then there’s the vastness—the infinite complexity of that number’s content, its symbolic meaning, beyond human understanding.

It's a Cataran number, for god’s sake.

So, circle gets the square. We explore our apophasis—gaps in our understanding that could be about anything. And even we do get those answers, we end up right back at the start. And frankly, the unknowing is so much more interesting than the knowing.

The knowledge gap of origin, from which all other knowledge gaps are born: ASCII* 42. Props to Deep Thought for being unfazed by Turing’s Halting Problem: “Idk. Whatever you want. Deuces are wild? Go nuts.”

One of my verticals is wondering why everyone still uses PowerPoint. The other one knows for a fact that the ’75 ADDIE model is the world’s greatest gift to mankind.

So still, we are left to explore the discord in which subjectivity and perception threaten to betray us, and in our uncertainty, cause us to question reality.

And so some of us contemplate the metaphysics of Truth. Pensando en la imortalidad del cangrejo. Is there no adventure in the (un)knowing?

Our solipsisms are, at once, as liberating as they can be subjugating.

Senior Learning Experience Designer | Everbright – Learning and Development

May 2022 – present

Instructional Designer | eTeams/Accenture

June 2021 - May 2022

Registered Behavioral Therapist | Children’s Autism Center

May 2020 - June 2021

Instructional Test Assessment Specialist | Pearson Education

June 2019 - May 2020 (TOP)

Editorial & Publications Manager | International Society of Arboriculture

January 2018 – June 2019

Managing Editor & Instructional Designer | Human Kinetics

May 2016 – December 2017

Conference Producer | Common Ground Publishing

August 2015 – May 2016

Graduate Fellow & Instructor | University of Illinois

August 2014 – August 2015

Chief Content Editor | Siren-BookStrand, Inc.

October 2011 – August 2014

MA English | University of Illinois at Springfield

May 2011