Education

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). Sustainability Education - Prescott College - Arizona

Master's (MWR): Water Resources - UNM - New Mexico

Bachelor of Science (BS): Environmental Science/Geology - NAU - Arizona

Associates (AS): Science - WWCC - Wyoming

Educational Research and Practice

I hold a Ph.D. in Sustainability Education from Prescott College, Arizona, USA where I studied intra-active pedagogies, and transformative learning in adult and higher education. Asking the simple yet complex question, “How do we learn,” I examined “traditional” teaching practices and theorized how and in what ways affective/emotion and social neuroscience, systems thinking, and performative cognitive development can contribute to the understanding of learning and change.

I come from a multicultural and multi-ethnic background as a first-generation Mexican-Ukranian-Polish American from a family who immigrated to Chicago, Illinois, and Seaside, California as farmers laborers, and the restaurant industry - for a better life. My scholar-practitioner beginnings started as an intercollegiate basketball athlete at Western Wyoming Community College where I graduated with my Associate of Science degree. I went to earn my BS, MS, and PhD in the Southwest of New Mexico and Arizona in both the natural and educational sciences.

As a multi-disciplinary scholar-practitioner, have taught and served in roles as an environmental and sustainability science professor and a professor in education. In my professional practice, I consulted in sustainable program and curriculum development and I have taught and led science and education academic programs for over 20 years from community college, undergraduate, and doctoral programs - all in online and hybrid formats affording me years of expertise, formal training, teaching with developing innovative and relevant teaching practices with technologies.