About

I study how continental crust is built, modified, and reorganized through time, working alongside Colorado College students to reconstruct that history from the ages, chemistry, and isotopic records preserved in rocks and minerals.

I’m an Assistant Professor of Geology at Colorado College, where I have taught since 2021. My research asks how continental crust is built, modified, and reorganized through time, and I reconstruct such histories from the rocks and minerals left behind. I combine field geology and petrology with geochronology, mineral chemistry, and isotope geochemistry to investigate how continents change via magmatism, deformation, and fluid-rock interaction through time, as recorded in minerals including zircon, garnet, titanite, and tourmaline, to name a few. My research has taken me from the Sierra Nevada and Mojave Desert to the mountains of Colorado and New Mexico, to the blueschists of Syros, Greece, and the Dun Mountain Ophiolite of Aotearoa New Zealand, as well as collaborations focusing on questions in West Antarctica and the Atacama region of Chile.

I first became interested in geology as a student at Long Beach City College before transferring to and earning my B.S. and M.S. in Geology at California State University, Fullerton. I completed my Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin in 2018, where I used stable isotope geochemistry of skarn minerals to investigate pluton emplacement conditions and the development of the North American Cordilleran volcanic arc. I remained at UT Austin as a postdoctoral researcher and was subsequently a Hamilton Visiting Scholar at Southern Methodist University before joining Colorado College.

At Colorado College, I teach across the geology curriculum, from Introduction to Earth Systems to upper-level courses in igneous and metamorphic petrology and geochronology and geochemistry. I also teach Forensic Geology and a course called “Earth, Fire, and Form: The geology of ceramics,” which uses geology to make connections between analytical chemistry, art, material culture, and creative work across the liberal arts.

My courses make use of fieldwork, laboratory investigation, analytical instruments, and collaborative problem-solving. As students progress through the curriculum, I give them increasing responsibility for deciding what observations matter, choosing appropriate methods, and developing and defending their own interpretations. Undergraduate research extends this progression as students develop original questions and carry projects through data collection, interpretation, and presentation at professional meetings.

I also enjoy sharing geology beyond the classroom and laboratory. I regularly bring CC students to meetings of the Colorado Springs Mineralogical Society, give public talks in the Colorado Springs community, and contribute to the Geological Society of America through conference sessions and field trips. These activities provide another way to share the process of geological discovery with students, colleagues, and the broader community. Beyond geology, I love making pottery and learning about ceramics, gardening and spending time outdoors, watching and gossiping about baseball, hanging out with my dog Gibbs (yes, named after Free Energy), caring for my flock of backyard chickens, and trying to learn to sew.