A rural-raised, first-generation college student, my experience outside academia includes being a cook, naturalist, stagehand, video game technician, stock boy, survey engineer for a mining exploration company in Latin America, general farm work, janitor, and various retail positions (plus many other gigs). Since turning my focus to academia, I have been a professional academic advisor, created and supervised several successful and award-winning academic, support, and student programs, served as a Fulbright Scholar (Jordan), Early Career Scholar (Geographic Education), and National Science Foundation Fellow (GK-12 ), while also earning awards for excellence in teaching, research, and service – including the Higher Education Distinguished Teaching award from the National Council for Geographic Education (USA).

 

Since childhood, my mantra centers on what Aristotle supposedly told Alexander, “Go and see...” – even before finding Geography. This continuing penchant for travel, exploration, and discovery keeps me broadly trained, while allowing me to pursue a myriad of research all over the world. In a nutshell, I use my expertise in the Science of Scenery (geomorphology, especially urban geomorphology), landscape change, and humanistic geography to help people better understand and appreciate the Earth and their connection to it. Regionally, my specialties include Latin America and the Caribbean (the Andes and Lesser Antilles more specifically), Japan, the Western US (including US-Mexico borderlands), and parts of Arabia – although I do have a solid grasp of other regions, spending significant time travelling, working, living, exploring, and studying around the globe.

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For more than two decades, I have held different faculty positions at several universities – including earning tenure at University of Colorado before serving as Lecturer in Environmental/Earth Science & Coordinator of the Environmental Science program at The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus (Barbados). As Associate Director of the Stone Heritage Research Alliance, I also collaborate on many projects worldwide: from Barbados to The Republic of North Macedonia & the US to Jordan.

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On a personal note, I enjoy a cold & frothy root beer, desserts, Nature, musical stylings of Billy Joel, Huey Lewis, & “Weird Al”, movies/cinema, lean and meaty steaks, basketball, True Love, playing in the dirt, Theatre and musicals, living, hot chocolate, softball, nutmeg, wandering through forests, gray, The Arts, roaming in the rain, volleyball, sci-fi/fantasy, exploring ruins, and the Oxford Comma. I also have a fondness for (mostly non-pink) Hello Kitty things.

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