MIT Global Languages

As a Lecturer in MIT’s English Language Studies program, I relish drawing on my wide breadth of scholastic and vocational experiences—e.g., studying STEM subjects for half of my undergraduate career at Stanford University and working there on a project for NASA’s Space Shuttle; programming a computer game; living and teaching in Berlin, Germany; becoming a fiction writer and translator; and teaching international students from the secondary level to the graduate—to help students across the disciplines improve their academic and professional communication skills, express their ideas clearly, access their creativity, and succeed at MIT and beyond.

I teach a variety of communication courses for undergraduates and graduate students, including Expository Composition for Bilingual Students; Speaking, Listening, and Pronunciation; Foundations of Academic and Professional Writing; and in the near future, hopefully, Imagining English: Creative Writing for Bilingual Students. I have received MIT grants to design a website—http://writingprocess.mit.edu—for instructing bilingual undergraduates in the use of a formal writing process and to design and propose a creative writing course for bilingual students at MIT.

I have also enjoyed being a judge for the Awards for Excellence in Global Studies and Languages and a judge and chair of the Isabelle de Courtivron Prize for high-quality undergraduate writing (creative or expository) on topics related to immigrant, diaspora, bicultural, bilingual, and/or mixed-race experiences.

Research interests/Expertise: Second-language writing; process writing for second-language students; commons-based writing for authentic audiences (e.g., writing for Wikipedia); and creative writing. 

Education 
2012-14  University of Massachusetts-Boston (graduate coursework in applied linguistics)
1999     MFA (Creative Writing/English), Boston University
1990     B.A. with distinction (History), Stanford University