Engaged, flexible learning that meets students where they are — connecting course concepts to lived experience and the ethical dimensions of technology, at both the university and community college level.
I design courses for the students who are actually in the room. At UCSB and Santa Barbara City College, that's mostly traditional college students — but courses still need room to flex, whether for a returning adult learner, a first-generation student, or someone juggling more than they let on. I build flexible, rigorous courses that connect course concepts to lived experience and integrate ethical, equity-centered approaches to emerging technologies.
My path to the classroom began outside academia. Nearly a decade in consulting — including leadership development with at-risk youth in Charlotte public schools and professional development with first-generation students at UNC Charlotte — taught me that student success depends not only on skills but on belonging, confidence, and relief from systemic barriers. I brought those lessons into the classroom and have never let them go.
Whether I'm teaching an intro lecture hall or a graduate seminar on AI and power, the goal is the same: students leave feeling both challenged and supported. I'm intentional about whose scholarship students encounter in my courses, drawing on a range of scholarly perspectives rather than a narrow canon.
Courses Taught
| Format | Course Title | Institution | Level | Focus Area |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| In-Person | Introduction to Communication | UCSB / SBCC | Undergraduate | Foundations |
| In-Person | Public Speaking | SBCC | Undergraduate | Oral Communication |
| Online | Collaborative Technologies & the Dynamics of Organizing | UCSB | Undergraduate | Technology & Organizational Communication |
| Online | Deception Communication | UCSB | Undergraduate | Deception, Detecting Deception, Deception with Technologies |
Classroom Practice
Each activity below is designed around a specific learning outcome and includes a structured debrief, with the flexibility to meet learners at different starting points.
Teambuilding & Experiential
Small groups build the tallest freestanding structure they can with limited materials — but each member can only communicate with the person directly next to them. The constraint surfaces how communication breakdowns compound under pressure, and what real coordination actually requires versus assumed coordination.
Used in: Public Speaking • Introduction to Communication
Discussion & Socratic
Students receive a transcript of a real chatbot customer-service interaction and map every hidden stakeholder — the company, the user, the designers, regulators, and the communities affected by the system's decisions. Designed to make power visible in what looks like a neutral exchange.
Used in: Human-Machine Communication • Introduction to Communication
Research & Writing
Students write a reflective essay tracing a single technology they use daily: when they adopted it, how it changed their behavior, and who benefits from that change. The assignment scaffolds academic argument-building from lived experience, helping students who don't yet see their own lives as worthy of academic inquiry build that confidence.
Used in: Introduction to Communication • Public Speaking
Role-Play & Simulation
Teams are assigned roles — CEO, frontline worker, ethicist, regulator, affected community member — and must negotiate whether to deploy an AI hiring tool. Each role receives different private information. The simulation surfaces how power shapes whose concerns get heard, whose expertise is discounted, and who bears the costs of a bad decision.
Used in: Power, Agency & AI Systems • Human-Machine Communication
Faculty Initiatives
Leading a faculty cohort at Santa Barbara City College to develop a discipline-specific AI Ethics Toolkit that supports equitable, critical approaches to AI integration across departments. The toolkit addresses algorithmic bias, authorship, sustainability, and the power dynamics embedded in AI systems.
Cohort Lead • In ProgressActive member of UCSB's Office of Teaching and Learning AI Community of Practice, collaborating with faculty across disciplines to develop pedagogically sound, equity-conscious approaches to AI in higher education. Contributes research expertise on human-machine communication and power dynamics.
Active MemberDesigned and piloted a summer program for high school seniors at UCSB exploring AI through a communication lens — not a coding lens. Students examine how AI shapes public discourse, interpersonal interaction, and institutional power, with hands-on lab activities that require no prior technical background.
Program DesignerMentorship is central to my work. I prioritize hiring Latinx, Chicanx, and African American students as research assistants, and actively support students navigating institutional barriers — always centering their agency. I also manage mentoring initiatives for ICA's Human-Machine Communication Interest Group, supporting early-career scholars.
OngoingAvailable for guest lectures, faculty workshops, curriculum consultation, and collaborative research on pedagogy and AI ethics.