The most life-defining moment for me was a fully immersive volunteer experience in the Dominican Republic as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. During that time, I learned Spanish to advanced proficiency, navigated a developing country with intercultural competence, and learned to successfully lead groups of volunteers. The experience ignited my interest in learning and development.

After graduate school, I landed my first job at Samsung in South Korea as a corporate English instructor and instructional designer. I collaborated with insightful people from all over the world to deliver world-class instruction in the classroom and through eLearning. My most impactful achievement was creating a listening skills curriculum from scratch using the ADDIE process and backwards design. Before I arrived, the course was consistently rated as the least helpful and least impactful by learners in the program. After implemented the newly revised course, it was rated as the second-highest in the program.


Since returning from Korea, I have worked in K-12 language education as well as contract jobs in curriculum development and instructional design on large-scale academic projects. My focus and interests have always been on proficiency and competency for learners. I don’t merely want to share knowledge or ask a learner to memorize facts, I want the learning experiences that I design to increase performance towards mastery.