Major(s): English, ethnic studies
Minor(s): Digital humanities, history
Hometown: Ainsworth, NE
Why did you select your majors?
I always knew I was strongest behind a Word Document, but my direction felt strangely incomplete when I started college. Classes I took early on in the Arts and Sciences department showed me my goals and journey were indeed Eurocentric and incomplete, but exploring and adopting theories taught in the Ethnic Studies Department has rounded out my overarching theses and redirected my career path towards a more multicultural writing and publishing path.
What is your favorite course taken at Nebraska?
My favorite course has been Native Women's History, taught by Dr. Katrina Jagodinsky. The class involved heavy weekly reading, but what we read was invaluable and poignant, so everything I experienced in this class was deep, intentional, and has remained important to my studies now.
Who have been some of your strongest mentors or role models?
Dr. Katrina Jagodinsky has been a continuous role model and supporter of mine since my sophomore year. I recommend every class she teaches. She is the wise, empathetic, funny, and poised leading academic and person I look up to most at UNL. And instructors with amazing syllabi, organization, readings, and follow-through ought to be recognized.
Have you had an internship/job?
I am the Editor & Public Information Technician for a Nebraskan biographical website at the Nebraska State Historical Society, and my supervisor is Senior Research Historian David Murphy, who has been an invaluable source of information and experience for me. My English major with Digital Humanities minor put in the perfect position to be a confident and expedient text, photo, and website editor. David Murphy and I are working to continually find ways to include my theories and topics of study in my biographical research of Nebraskans.
What are your plans after graduation?
After I graduate, I want to work towards crescendoing the voices and stories of marginalized people in rural communities & flyover states through my work in expanding accessible and multicultural public information, both as an employee in publication, and through my personal endeavors and eventual creations.
