After 19 years of teaching high school English and coaching and judging winter guard, she recognizes the amazing power of secondary students to be agents of change. This has led her to study the ways that young adult literature can tap into that capacity and her research explores the ways YA impacts students’ and teachers’ pro-social behavior. Some publications can be found in the ALAN review, Study and Scrutiny the Southern Oregon English Journal, and the Journal of American Indian Education.