I loved my childhood at the feet of the Rocky Mountains in Thatcher, Idaho and my adolescence surrounded by the Superstition Mountains in Mesa, Arizona. I graduated from Brigham Young University with a BS (1999) in Zoology (Pre-Medicine) and a minor in Spanish. My husband, Greg, and I raised our five children in California and Arkansas. Later, I completed an MA (2020) and a PhD (2024) in History from the University of Arkansas.

I currently teach as an adjunct instructor for both the History Department at the University of Arkansas and the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine. I also teach at the Institute of Religion for Northwest Arkansas Young Single Adults.

My research focuses on religion, gender, and medicine in the nineteenth century. My book manuscript, First Females: Latter-day Saints in Europe and Oceania, examines the lives of the first women baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Europe and Oceania: Ann Dawson (1785-1849) in England and a woman known simply as Teri’i (ca. 1800-ca. 1860) in what is now known as French Polynesia.

Outside of teaching, researching, and writing, I enjoy water-skiing, golf, long walks, playing my violin, and discovering more good eats here in the Ozarks.