I completed my PhD at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, USA, where I wrote about online fanfiction and literacy practices in my dissertation, To My Betas, Endless Chocolate Frogs!: Exploring the Intersections of Emotion, the Body, and Literacy in Online Fanfiction. While in graduate school, I taught courses on writing and business communication. I then worked as an Assistant Professor of English and Writing Centre Director at the University of Jamestown in North Dakota, USA, where I developed a new service for students, faculty, and staff to talk about their various writing projects, including their successes and challenges. Here at Kings College, I plan to extend my work into fan studies and effective and ethical online research methodologies. All of my research interests surround literacy and identity in one way or another.

My dissertation focused on the identity and literacy practices in online fanfiction communities. In that project, I argued that fanfiction practices provide us with an insight into how digital technologies interact with literacy practices – especially in terms of how these technologies change the ways in which texts are produced, circulated, and received. My current work is to further theorize emotion theory and research ethics in relation to online fanfiction. I am particularly interested, across my work as a scholar, teacher, and mentor, in the deeply emotional journey of identity-shaping that happens when we engage with popular culture, digital spaces, and digital tools. In addition, I am interesting in seeing what connections exist among the literacy learning and practices that happen in both out-of-school and in-school spaces. Other research areas include: translanguaging; U.S. Borderland literatures; writing centres.