Professionally, I am a science librarian who prioritizes connecting with students and faculty through creative, quality instruction and outreach.
I also like to make things. I enjoy process, and learning about something through creation helps me understand whatever that “thing” is a little better.
I find teaching is equally enlightening.
Teaching Abroad
Some of the most memorable and impactful experiences with students have been while teaching abroad. I have:
- Travelled with students to study the environments in the Amazon Rainforest, Andean cloud forests, the Altiplano, and the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador
- Taught and learned alongside of students while diving the Mesoamerican Reef in Roatán, Honduras
- Worked with students to dive and collect data for REEF as part of a citizen science effort in Cozumel, Mexico and in Key Largo, Florida
- Performed social service work with students in Quito, Ecuador as we learned about some of the difficulties many of their citizens face every day.
We have laughed and cried together. I have learned much about them, and them about me. While this kind of travel is not for everyone, it has been an extremely important part of my teaching.
Incidentally, it has proved to be an amazing form of library outreach.
Unexpected Outreach
Outreach informs nearly all aspects of my philosophy of librarianship, and my view of outreach is broad. Outreach is not just programming, even though programming is an important part of outreach. Outreach can be found in many unexpected places, and every interaction is some form of outreach. I try to make them count.
Research
My current research is associated with Tabletop games and higher education. I have been using tabletop games in my classroom, and I and my friend and co-author Mary Broussard recently published about this in Reference Services Review.
Commercial tabletop games to teach information literacy.
I am currently researching and writing about tabletop game collections in academic libraries. More to come!
You can learn more about what I have published and presented on, as well as some of the projects I’ve been proud to be a part of, such as the creation of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, by visiting my professional pages.