Welcome

I am an Assistant Professor at the University of California-Davis and an interactive media producer with research interests in education, design, culture, technology and media. My educational experiences have provided me with the opportunity to develop a background in engineering, digital media, and education. This training has positively influenced the numerous media-related projects I have been involved in during my past 2 decades as an educator, producer, consultant, and researcher. View my cv and resume for details.

My interests in traditional forms of media (e.g. television, graphic novels, books) and digital technologies (e.g. video games, apps, robotics) for both entertainment and education inspire my personal projects. I believe in the importance of user experience design and it factors strongly into my research of the social messages that are received through different cultural mediums. I study the various ways media and society can influence the development of social success skills and I examine the social processes that occur during media experiences and social interactions.

Additionally, I explore the social processes that exist within media production environments in order to provide realistic and efficient guidelines for producers who wish to create prosocial and educational media content. The daily struggles, challenges, triumphs, and interactions faced by media creators throughout the production life cycle are factored into the strategies that are developed so that it can increase the likelihood that their prosocial, educational, and cultural objectives will be met. More information about my research can be found on my research page.