I grew up bicultural (British and American) as an Air Force kid, living across the U.S., Spain, and England during my formative years. After high school, I served in the 101st Airborne Division. I later attended the University at Buffalo as a first-generation student and earned a B.A. in English Literature, studying with poets including Robert Creeley and Mac Hammond. From there I went on to Yale University, completing an M.A. in Renaissance Studies and a Ph.D. in European History under Professor Geoffrey Parker, with a focus on Golden Age Spain and Elizabethan England.

My teaching career has taken me from Yale University to the University of Utah and Weber State University, and then to Salt Lake Community College, where I spent 17 years teaching in Humanities — including Great Books — and leading one of the college’s largest General Education courses. I’m the author of Philip III and the Pax Hispanica (Yale University Press) and It Begins with Our Questions: The Humanities as a Call to Action (Hayden-McNeil).

Over the last 17 years, I’ve held a range of academic leadership roles: Department Chair of Humanities; Division Chair of Humanities, Language, and Culture; and Dean of Humanities and Social Science at Salt Lake Community College; Dean of Liberal Arts at Truckee Meadows Community College; and most recently Dean of Instruction at the University of New Mexico–Los Alamos, overseeing a wide range of disciplines and academic support services, including tutoring centers and libraries. At Cabrillo, I’m grateful to be working alongside outstanding faculty and staff in service of our students—and I’m excited about what we can build together.

Outside of work, I’m a vegetarian who appreciates a good latte, used bookstores, live music, movies, hiking, and dark beer. My daughters — a pediatric nurse and an art instructor — live in Salt Lake City.

Please feel free to stop by the School of English, Library, and Language Arts (ELLA) offices in 301 if you need anything.