I am an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Maine.  My research examines the way in which rural schools and communities respond to 21st century social and economic change. As part of this work, I co-lead the Rural Vitality Lab, a cross-institutional research partnership between the University of Maine and Colby College. My teaching and service reflect my interest in creating and sustaining healthy developmental ecologies for rural youth as I work with aspiring principals, teacher leaders and doctoral students to understand how educational leaders can better work with and be community leaders. I also currently serve as Co-Editor of the National Rural Education Association’s scholarly journal, The Rural Educator.

I am currently co-editing the Bloomsbury Handbook on Rural Education in the United States (release date: 2021) with Dr. Amy Azano and Dr. Karen Eppley, and am co-authoring a book for Harvard Education Press with Dr. Lyn Brown, Dr. Mark Tappan, and Brittany Ray entitled, Voice, vitality and healing: Centering students in trauma-informed schooling (release date: 2022).

I received my Ph.D. in Educational Leadership  from Penn State’s Department of Education Policy Studies where I worked as a research affiliate of the Center on Rural Education and Communities. Before I became a researcher, I was the Executive Director of the Nanubhai Education Foundation, a 501c3 organization working in Gujarat, India on “Inspiring Students, Empowering Teachers, and Transforming Rural Classrooms”, as well as a high-school educator in rural India and a middle-school educator in South Boston with the national non-profit Citizen Schools.