Visual storyteller.  Creative mess maker.  Daydreamer.  Would-be world traveler.  Recovering caffeine addict.  Montana girl.

For most of my childhood, my dad worked as a long-haul truck driver. I spent the summer before I turned 14 riding shotgun (and playing navigator) as we ferried carpets to Atlanta, aluminum to Boston, oilfield equipment to Texas. It was a tradition in our family to listen to books on tape during long road trips, and Dad started our summer off with Robert James Waller's The Bridges of Madison County.

I was utterly spellbound, listening to that story spin out over the miles - but not with the romance. There was a deeply meditative quality to the scenes dealing with photography, an attention to detail and a love of craft that captivated me. That fall, I pestered the editor of the small weekly newspaper in my hometown into taking me on as a photo intern. The moment I held one of the paper's Nikon F4 cameras in my hands, I was a goner.

A little over ten years later, I graduated with an undergraduate degree in Photojournalism from the University of Montana's School of Journalism, and followed that up with an MFA in Integrated Digital Media from UM's School of Media Arts. My favorite medium has been (and probably always will be) photography, but I have ample experience working as a cinematographer and filmmaker, a writer and editor, a graphic designer, a front end web developer, and a handful of other digital media roles.

My career so far has taken me to five of the six major newspaper in Montana, with a 3-year stint at a U.S. Forest Service research and development facility in between. Most recently, I have called higher education home: I spent a little over three years at Washington State University as the Senior Editor for the marketing department's Video Services unit, before coming home to Montana to take on the role of Digital Marketing Manager for Carroll College.

My video, animation and front end web development work has been consistently recognized for innovation and creativity, and I thrive in environments where I am able to use my interdisciplinary background. I love the ideation phase of a project: the process of taking the bare components of a story and determining the mediums and platforms that will best convey that message and achieve the highest audience engagement.

I am committed to continuously improving my skills and am keenly interested in the evolution of digital media technologies - particularly our application of those technologies.