Expertise
AI change management, place-based innovation ecosystem, techno-economic development, plant polyploidy
Research Interests
Techno-economic development for place-based innovation ecosystem development and lifecycle management, science policy particularly around emerging technologies, horizon-scanning and innovative forms of governance.
Education
- Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Biology - University of New Mexico,
- Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.), Ecology and Evolutionary Biology - University of Rochester
Biosketch
In my role at UMass Lowell (UML), I bring pragmatic optimism to the complex challenges at the intersection of AI and learning. I work to build durable institutional practices and help faculty and students understand AI as a collaborator in human intelligence—always grounded in emotion-aware, evidence-backed decision-making. I am motivated by people-first systems and guided by a personal ethos of meliora – ever better. My approach is also shaped by my life experience. As a first-generation college student, I was raised to wonder about and question the world around me. After being orphaned as a teenager, I learned that communities can carry people through their darkest hardships, and I have worked to cultivate that kind of community everywhere I can. AI may be the greatest predictive engine humans have ever built, but it cannot predict beyond what it has been trained on. No description of your past should ever be a prescription for your future. Before joining UML, I served as an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow in the National Science Foundation’s Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate. There, I worked at the intersection of AI, policy, and innovation ecosystems, leading and supporting projects on AI implementation, adoption, evaluation, and governance. I translated technical evidence into strategic insights that informed policy, program design, and organizational decision-making. My scientific foundation is in evolutionary ecology. My research has spanned ant evolution at the University of Rochester and plant evolution and information transfer across time and space as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow at the University of New Mexico. As a Visiting Assistant Professor at Penn State, I designed curriculum and taught biology courses and labs—experience that continues to inform how I approach leadership, learning systems, and institutional change.
Selected Contracts, Fellowships, Grants and Sponsored Research
- American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellowship
- National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship, McNair Scholar
Research Currently in Progress
Models of innovation ecosystem lifecycle development across time and space.