A Slightly More Official Bio

I earned my BA in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1999. At Berkeley, I studied the nature of conceptual thought in courses with Eleanor Rosch, George Lakoff, and other explorers of the inner cosmos. My primary interest was the relationship between thoughts and emotions, particularly as they arise across different modes of consciousness.

At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where I earned my doctorate, I set up an independent lab to study the role of conceptual metaphor and embodied cognition in generating emotional experience. My dissertation explored a potential developmental pathway for embodied concepts. How do we learn, for example, that excessively difficult work is a burden… and even feels subjectively heavy, as though we were carrying an actual weight?

Between 2010 and 2020, I worked for several non-profit organizations dedicated to supporting the emotional development and well-being of children and adolescents. For about seven years, I was the Director of Research at Prime Time, a non-profit in Palm Beach County, Florida, where I studied the impact of supportive adults and high-quality social settings on the social and emotional well-being of children. After leaving Prime Time, I became a research consultant for the Palm Health Foundation, Youth Speak Out International, and QTurn, a group of researchers and thought leaders that offers support and education to afterschool programs across the country.

About that gap in my resume… After 2020, my waning health took a Kamikaze nosedive, and in 2022, I was diagnosed with Stage III cancer. I’m currently in remission and gradually recovering. I continue to work with QTurn as an advisor. At the same time, the recovery period has given me a window of opportunity to return to writing (with this site as my launch point).

And traditional bio closer… I’m the mother of two grown boys and step-mom to two grown girls. I currently live in Florida with my husband, Kirk, our German Shepard, Aniara, and our cat, Charlie. (We also get the occasional gecko on our living room wall.) As a lifelong Star Trek fan not far from the Kennedy Space Center, I love watching rocket launches from our backyard every few weeks or so. It never gets old.

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