MY STORY
I build bridges. Bridges between the technical and the abstract, between different cultures and political positions, between the underprivileged and the elite. I’ve lived in Australia, Sweden, and Brasil for more than 6 years combined. I love to learn, and I love to lead. I’ve founded a startup focused on children’s cultural education. I’ve published peer-reviewed research on media and culture, including an academic book. I have technical skills in most areas of video and audio production, from scripting to directing to editing. And I’m also a talented project manager, teacher, and presenter. I live for authentic stories. So, here’s a little of my own…
Good ideas are infectious. Although it took me a few years to learn how to study—it wasn’t until my last year of undergrad that I finally figured it out—I caught the research bug. Getting a master’s degree was the obvious next step but I wasn’t ready to give up on media industry yet. So I did both—studying and teaching as a graduate student during the day and working as a video producer and editor on weekends for an entertainment company. Working in both worlds made my decision to pursue a PhD much easier. I was on the fast track to nerdom and absolutely loving it.
For about 10 years I followed my curiosity to build an academic career (while keeping a foot in the media production world). I read more books in the span of a single week than I had in my entire life up until that point. I did interview research, ethnographic research, textual analysis, and historical research. I presented research at international, national, and regional conferences. I published articles in the field’s top peer-reviewed journals.
In 2017, after finishing a PhD at the University of Iowa, I took a job as a tenure-track professor at Southern Utah University, a growing liberal arts college. There I developed and taught several new courses from broadcast production to multimedia management. I mentored hundreds of students and launched several cross-departmental initiatives, including a student film festival and a multimedia platform for student stories.
Itching for an international experience, my family and I moved to Sweden in 2019 where I was a research fellow in a digital humanities department at Umeå University. I finished my first book — a cultural history of Mormon Media (University of Illinois Press) — and published research in top-tier journals on several topics, including YouTube advertising and kidfluencers, content filtering and copyright law, and religious internet memes (among others).
I felt a deep and growing urgency to make a bigger impact. My research articles were getting citations and I knew my book would make a splash but I felt called to do more. I wanted to be on the frontlines. In 2020, I left academia to co-found KidCulture: an ed-tech startup aimed at teaching young kids about world cultures. Our mission is to provide kids the cultural education and character development they need to thrive in a globally integrated world. We raised $250,000 and I put my heart and soul into getting the company off the ground. As a co-founder, I collaborated on company strategy, product, marketing, and everything in between.
As Head of Content at KidCulture, I built processes for producing videos with footage from untrained families in over 50 different countries. I hired and managed a team of remote video editors, social media managers, and designers. I crafted content for paid social ads and oversaw marketing efforts.
I conducted a lot of UX research on our early users’ attitudes about and experiences with the platform. I did in-depth interviews, focus groups, concept tests, and usability tests—in addition to dogfooding the product with my own young kids at home. I took everything I was learning from this research directly to our software engineers; it was exciting to be so heavily involved with product development.
With KidCulture struggling to find product market fit (I think we’re simply ahead of our time), in early 2023 I began working as a freelance business consultant and podcast host and producer.
As a consultant, I’ve helped content companies understand their target audiences/users, build effective internal processes for content production, and develop new products and services. As a podcast host and producer, I’ve interviewed people struggling with serious mental health challenges, crafted engaging scripts, edited interviews into compelling episodes, and guided people through the creation of their first podcast.
I’m excited about two podcasts in particular. The first, which is called Whole Minded, features the raw stories of people’s struggles with mental health combined with professional insight; the second, entitled The Compass, tackles our most pressing cultural and political issues through a Latter-day Saint (Mormon) lens. Both will be released in the fall of 2023.
Outside of work I enjoy spending time outdoors with my family and making music. Hiking, fishing, surfing, riding bikes, and beach tennis are a few of my favorite hobbies. I also maintain a childhood obsession with frogs and toads—I know, it’s weird.
Below is a picture of me with my 4 kids. Yes, I did a PhD and had 4 kids before I turned 32…And by “I did,” I mean WE, because no one can do that without an incredible partner who really deserves all the credit for all the good that’s come to us!!
It’s been a wild ride and I wouldn’t trade it for anything!
