Hello and welcome. I study biomedical rhetoric and teach college-level classes in public speaking, rhetorical process, argumentation, and science communication. 

I am a writer, oral historian, professor of communication, and bioethicist with 10 years' experience as a science writer and content editor. Prior to studying scientific rhetoric and bioethics at University of Pittsburgh (PhD, MA, 2019) I earned a BA in English literature and writing (poetry) from Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky (2008) and an MS in science writing from MIT (2011).
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My dissertation, Conceptions of “Success”: The Ethics and Rhetoric of Hand Transplantation, explores how recipients of experimental hand transplants (HTx) and their loved ones talk about post-surgical outcomes of HTx—especially long-term “quality of life” outcomes—and how narrative insights from hand transplant patients compare to the measurement-oriented outcomes assessments given by HTx doctor-researchers (available online at Pitt D-scholarship: http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/36943/).

​I have also published research on the rhetorical dynamics of contemporary evolutionary biology—see my recent publication (with Eva Jablonka) in Interdisciplinary Science Reviews: “Creating a Gestalt Shift in Evolutionary Science”, and about the interdisciplinary bioethics of hand transplantation (with my colleagues Jessica Benham (see this special issue of the AMA Journal of Ethics on reconstructive transplantation ethics for which we served as guest editors) and Lisa S. Parker (see our peer-reviewed paper in Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, "Narrative Methods for Assessing 'Quality of Life' in Hand Transplantation: Five case studies with bioethical commentary"
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The "read" page contains multiple links to my academic work and some select science writing (interviews and essays); check back soon for teaching tools (exercises, syllabi) from the courses I teach at Pitt and for research updates.