Some background ...
As a writing coach, I love working with doctoral students and faculty members and seeing them meet their academic writing goals. As a former blocked writer (who was at risk of being ABD), I have a special affinity for working with academics who are struggling with the writing process. I have seen far too many smart, motivated, and impressive doctoral students remain ABD or faculty members struggle with getting tenure. The reason? Although they excelled in most everything they have ever been taught, they had never been taught the skills and habits for writing a dissertation-length research piece or for writing books and articles amidst busy schedules. I’ll work with you, customize what I call The Single System for Academic Writing, and get you on track for completing your dissertation, research, and scholarship so that you meet your personal and professional goals.
For these reasons, I made a career change in 2008 and I am writing and serving as an academic writing coach full-time. I have worked with doctoral students and new faculty members for over 15 years. I proposed, developed, and taught for eight years the Dissertation Writing Seminar at the University of Vermont. Students and their advisers offered the highest praise for this course. Why the advisers? Because the quality of the work they were receiving from their advisees jumped as their students applied techniques of fluent writing to their dissertation projects.
As the Director of the Faculty Mentoring Program at UVM, I revitalized a well-established program and expanded the program to not only include mentoring but also programs on writing fluency and efficient teaching preparation. Through this position and as a member of the College of Education and Social Services Retention, Promotion, and Tenure (RPT) committee, I have reviewed many reappointment and promotion dossiers and I have assisted numerous faculty members in writing effective RPT dossiers. While at UVM, I revamped the Henderson Pre– and Post– Doctoral Fellowship program, so that the program actively supported the minority doctoral students and post-doctoral candidates. As part of this program, I developed and facilitated a weekly writing group and facilitated their navigation of the academic climate at UVM. I was also a Research Faculty Member at UVM, where I funded my position through federal, state, and private grants, so I understand how to write effective grants that address the RFA or funding opportunity.
Prior to moving to the East Coast, I served as the Mentoring Specialist and Senior Research Associate at MentorNet, the E-mentoring Network for Diversity in Science and Engineering. As the third person hired, I was instrumental in developing the programmatic aspects of one of the first large-scale e-mentoring programs developed in the United States. We were breaking new ground as we merged the research on mentoring with the explosion of electronic communications and social networking. The experiment was highly successful and today MentorNet still uses many of the features we developed.
I received my B.Accy. (Bachelor in Accountancy) from the George Washington University and my M.A. and Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Stony Brook University. I live in Burlington, VT with my husband and dog. I am on the City of Burlington Library Commission and on its Diversity and Advocacy subcommittees. Among many other things, I love traveling and hiking and have had a chance to hike in Patagonia, Australia, Ireland, the Sierras, the Rocky Mountains, the White Mountains, and, of course, the Green Mountains.