I am a doctoral student at Claremont Graduate University. My current interests include statistical research and technology. I am involved in teaching and research for Dr. David Drew, who is also my adviser. I am also a web design and content manager for the School of Educational Studies.

I have quite a bit of experience teaching. My courses include English as a second language, web development, Excel, Access, database development and SQL, and math. I have been a teaching assistant for doctoral level statistics for the past two years and recently did bibliographic research for a book that will be coming out in the fall.

My interest in teaching started in the early 90s after working with children for two years on the SS Oceanic. The Oceanic was a cruise ship which sailed from Florida to the Bahamas two times a week. It was fun, but there is only so long a person can stay on a cruise ship. I briefly considered getting a teaching credential but instead ended up moving to Istanbul, Turkey - long story. Since there was not much else a foreigner could do in Turkey I taught English to both children and adults at a school called The English Centre. I returned to the United States after two years in Istanbul.

Upon my return to America, I found myself without work and with a very young child. After several months stuck at home all day, I decided to start a home based business selling Turkish items on eBay After learning a bit about HTML for my sales items I decided to take classes in web design and programming. Six months after I started web design classes at California State University - Long Beach, I was hired to teach those same classes. After about six month teaching at CSULB-Extension, I was recruited to teach web design and Dreamweaver at The Software Training Center in Artesia, California. While there I completed my Master's Degree in Information Systems Management.

Working as a trainer is frustrating. Most students take classes only for a day or two. When I worked in Turkey as an ESL instructor, my students stayed with me for months, or even a year. I wanted a longer relationship with my students, so I left STC and worked as an instructor of math, database development, and web design at ITT Technical Institute. During this time I realized that what I really enjoyed was the higher education environment, so even though my master's was in MIS, I decided to pursue a PhD. in education. After careful consideration I choose Claremont Graduate Institute. It was a good choice.

I am now in my forth year. My courses are done and I am working on my qualitative exams, and hope to eventually start my dissertation. I keep changing my mind about the topic but should have that nailed down soon. In the mean time I do web development and many other tasks for the education department at Claremont Graduate University.