I am a mother, a partner, and a community member in Western MA. My SFS journey brought me right back to where I started and I joined the Office of Academic Affairs at The School for Field Studies in early 2017. Prior to joining SFS, I was a faculty member in the Environmental Studies Program at Wellesley College, where I taught courses on food systems, tropical agroecology, botany, and writing. Much of my teaching utilized examples from Latin America, where my research is based. I also have experience researching and developing innovative pedagogies and effective student evaluations for the sciences. While at Wellesley, I initiated the Science Pedagogy Working Group, an affinity group for faculty interested in innovative pedagogy, sharing resources, and rethinking how we approach science education more generally.

My experience in SFS-Kenya ’01 started me on my career path investigating human-environment relationships using transdisciplinary approaches. My research and teaching interests include agroecology, social and environmental justice, participatory action research, innovative science pedagogy, and biodiversity conservation. I received my PhD in Plant and Soil Sciences from the University of Vermont in 2013. For my dissertation research, I collaborated with coffee cooperatives in northern Nicaragua to explore biodiversity conservation and farmer decision making, asking how the ecological landscape interacts with the social landscape across coffee systems. Returning to SFS as the Dean provides the opportunity to work with our faculty on questions regarding agroecological landscapes as well as pedagogical approaches.