My passion for education has been evident my entire life - one doesn't earn three post-graduate degrees without loving learning! But that passion extends to teaching, too, and I love being able to share my education and understanding with others. I am a graduate of Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, earning a bachelors degree in Communication Studies. I continued in that subject matter at the University of Iowa, where I earned a Master's degree and Ph.D. in Communication Studies, with emphasis in rhetoric, interpersonal communication, and persuasion. I also earned a J.D. at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, and am a member of the Minnesota bar. I have been teaching and tutoring for over 15 years. I have tutored in small group and individual settings for students taking the LSAT, GRE and Bar exams. Additionally, I have significant experience teaching college classes, including communication theory, public speaking, interpersonal communication, and research methods. Particularly in cases of test prep (but also as a general guideline), I like to focus on a student's strengths, not weaknesses. I evaluate to see what kind of thinking a student employs and teach them how to identify and answer those questions. Then we look for ways to use those strengths to address other questions and build up expertise from that. I have found that this helps students feel confident about their own intelligence, able to improve in challenging areas, and create a long-term learning strategy.

I love to sing and perform in musical theater productions when I can. I love traveling (though obviously the pandemic has made that difficult) and people-watching. I have two amazing old cats that I'm sure are the smartest cats in the world, based on all the practice lectures and lessons they've heard from me over the years.