About the Founder

I am a queer, feminist editor and publication coach. I help scholars to navigate academia’s unspoken expectations and publish their research. My work is intersectional, always.

I have been a prep cook in a dinner theater, life drawing model for art classes, and patient actor for medical students. My first foray into helping others on their higher education journeys was right after college, when I worked as a call-center operator, answering questions about the FAFSA (that needlessly complex application for student aid).

Since 2014, I’ve worked with faculty, independent scholars, and PhD students as an editor and, more recently, a publication coach. I provide developmental, stylistic, and copy editing to scholars in the humanities and qualitative social sciences. I also work one-on-one with scholars to help them meet their writing goals; I recently reached 400 hours of private coaching.

Throughout my work, I am committed to supporting people who, like me, have struggled to find belonging in academia. I do this by demystifying academic knowledge and norms that form part of the “hidden curriculum” of academia. I also support my clients to reframe outsider perspectives as strengths, an approach illustrated by my business name, et al. Scholars.

I am sensitive to the deeply personal work of knowledge production; and I build on my own experience as the author of peer-reviewed articles and a scholarly monograph (published by Cambridge University Press in 2019).

I grew up the oldest of five children in a white evangelical household in rural Pennsylvania. Public school educated, K to PhD, I earned my PhD in Latin American History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2014) and was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Dartmouth College. I received my BA in Spanish and Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies from the University of Kansas (2005).

Outside of et al. Scholars, I serve as an expert witness for LGBTQ+ Cubans seeking asylum in the U.S.

Check out my CV for more information about my background.