My research interests include literature and culture, humanities and STEM integration, and engineering education. These areas are unified by broad concerns for justice, inclusion, and social progress. My literary scholarship considers the ways literature helps to advance social progress and justice, while my educational research investigates educational environments and works to develop pedagogies and content that open STEM education to broader populations by bringing the humanities and arts to scientific and technical subjects.

WPI's unusually trans-disciplinary and collaborative environment has inspired both my teaching and research. My most recent research projects are collaborations with engineers and other humanists on engineering education. I collaborate with engineering faculty to study the climate in engineering education for LGBTQ+ students (NSF# 1640499) and to develop integrative classroom curricula and materials for college and middle school classrooms (Women's Impact Network grant). With students and colleagues I develop role-playing games (RPGs) to teach engineering and science within a rich cultural context that attends to historical particulars. We call these RPGs "Humanitarian Engineering Past & Present."

I teach humanities courses in literature, ethnic studies, writing, and global feminisms, inquiry seminars in literary and cultural studies, and Great Problems Seminars in Humanitarian Engineering. With David DiBiasio (Chemical Engineering), I co-direct WPI's program in Liberal Arts and Engineering. I teach literature in Worcester's Clemente Course in the Humanities. Like most WPI faculty, I also advise IQPs on and off campus.