Self-Study in Practice
Where self-awareness meets systems thinking
Before I Can Study Contemplation Through Data Science: Rebuilding Embodied Infrastructure
Last week I gave a presentation in my data science class asking whether computational methods could capture contemplative transformation in teachers. But as I prepared it, something else surfaced: I can't study contemplative observation without doing it myself.
In the Liminal Space: Self-Compassion When Systems Fail
Last week I shared a blog piece about life mapping my educational journey—drawing the tenure track as a jail. Today, I'm sharing an article about reclaiming my voice and journey by learning to say my own name.
"The Myna Bird Knows Her Name" (original title: In the Liminal Space: Self-Compassion When Systems Fail) has been published in Lion's Roar Magazine's Bodhi Leaves section—exploring how mispronunciation and marginalization became invitations to reclaim voice, and how liminal spaces became training grounds for practice.
Life Mapping My Faculty Experience
In January 2022, while building reliability for our PreK inclusion study, I drew my first life map. I drew the tenure track as a jail—black and white, with vertical pillars.
The discomfort was so immediate that I drew a second, safer version to share with teachers. I was asking participants to be vulnerable about their educational journeys while hiding my own.
Three years later, I'm sitting with what that first map revealed about researcher positionality and the ecology of institutions of higher education.
The Data That Waited: What 272 Teachers Taught Me About Invisible Networks
What 272 teachers taught me about invisible infrastructure
Designing With, Not For: What Becomes Visible From Liminal Spaces
Liminal spaces—those thresholds where you never quite belong—aren't just places of struggle. They're sites of insight that reveal what institutions miss when they only measure what's familiar.
What becomes possible when we design with people from liminal spaces rather than for them?
Building Relational Infrastructure: Questions for a Moment of Transition
EI/ECSE faces devastating federal cuts that demand our fierce attention and action. What if we centered relational infrastructure as we work to protect, strengthen, and rebuild?
A Note of Dedication
This practice and website are dedicated to my daughter. She is only four, but she has already been my greatest teacher—showing me in real-time what I've known in my bones but couldn't quite articulate since I was a little one myself.
Let’s Talk
I partner with learning-focused organizations using contemplative mapping approaches that integrate data collection with systematic observation to reveal the relationship patterns and institutional dynamics shaping collaboration and support—from early childhood programs and schools to professional development providers and community-based learning initiatives.
If you're curious whether this approach might offer you insights, I'd love to learn more about what you're working on.