| I am currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography at the University of Washington-Seattle, expecting to graduate in June 2009. I hold a Master of Arts degree in Geography, obtained from the University of Washington in 2005. My Bachelor of Science degree is also in Geography (with a minor emphasis in GIS and Computer Science and Information Systems, graduated summa cum laude), obtained from Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. In my fifth year as an instructor with the University of Washington GIS Certificate program, I lecture on principles of cartography and cartographic critique. I also serve as the editorial assistant for Social & Cultural Geography. I have been named a HASTAC Scholar, recognizing my work in the study of digital culture, and a Huckabay Teaching Fellow (a Preparing Future Faculty initiative), where I collaboratively work to develop interdisciplinary curriculum for the digital humanities.
From a small farming community in northwest Missouri, where my family has lived for over 150 years, I have grown to enjoy the human-environmental narratives of landscape, movement, and technology. I am the third generation to live in Pumpkin Center, Missouri -- a placename for travelers between Savannah and Maryville, Missouri. A fourth generation alumnus of the Barnard-Guilford public school system, I graduated in a class of 18 from South Nodaway High School, reorganized from the country school system in the 1950s. My cousin was valedictorian; I was salutatorian. I return to northwest Missouri a few times a year, reminders of the intense seasonality of the Middle West.
Since moving to Seattle, Washington, I have lived in the unique neighborhoods of Lake City, Tangletown, University District, and most recently, Capitol Hill. With each move I have been fortunate to become less car dependent, and have been 'car-free' for nearly two years. I enjoy the density of the Capitol Hill neighborhood, its walkability, sense of place, and its frictioned adjacency to downtown Seattle. |
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