r e s u m e
academic experience
• frequent guest lecturer at USC on media, entertainment, technology, cultural diplomacy and globalization
• helped develop the Masters Program in Public Diplomacy at the USC Annenberg School for Communication
• taught classes at the university level for six years, including courses on popular culture, Shakespeare, twentieth-century literature and science fiction at UC Santa Barbara
• won 11 fellowships and scholarships including the Dissertation Fellowship at UC Santa Barbara and an Oregon Scholar award
• currently a fellow in the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities
entertainment industry research & experience
• advisory board member for Spectrum, USC's arts and lecture programs
• member of the Entertainment Computing working group in the International Federation for Information Processing
•planned and organized over 60 events related to entertainment, including a ground-breaking conference on Fashion & the Ownership of Creativity, a museum exhibition on American propaganda films from the 30s and 40s; a four-part series on “The Power of the Media:” a six-year faculty seminar on “Celebrity, Politics & Public Life;” a large-scale conference on “Artists, Technology & the Ownership of Creative Content;” and several events on the convergence of politics and entertainment
• performed research for the Vice President of Research & Development and the legal department at Knowledge Adventure (a division of Vivendi-Universal Games)
• participated in development of Blaster’s Universe, a CBS cartoon
• developed the character bible and style guide for Blaster software line ($19.8 million in sales in 1998)
• wrote script coverage, interviewed entertainment writers, and reviewed submissions from actors and voice talent at Knowledge Adventure
multimedia experience
• developed and launched five Web sites for the Norman Lear Center, including www.learcenter.org
• developed and launched branded Web sites for edutainment products at Vivendi- Universal
• redesigned the Havas Interactive (now Vivendi-Universal Games) Intranet site (7.5 gigs; approx. 250,000 requests per week)
• wrote and edited stories, scripts, and educational content for several Knowledge Adventure multimedia titles
writing & editing
• guided more than 50 manuscripts through the publication process at the Norman Lear Center, including five books: Television’s Changing Image of American Jews (contributors include Frank Rich and Neal Gabler); Frank Capra and the Image of the Journalist in American Film, by Joe Saltzman; Artists, Technology & the Ownership of Creative Content; Warners’ War: Propaganda, Politics & Pop Culture in Wartime Hollywood, and Ready to Share: Fashion & the Ownership of Creativity.
• performed research and wrote grants for Lear Center projects on American propaganda films; the globalization of entertainment; global media and journalism standards; entertainment education and “edutainment,” and the effects of entertainment on voting habits and attitudes toward government
• served as rapporteur for a six-year USC faculty seminar series on Celebrity, Politics & Public Life
• completed a dissertation and published two academic articles
• edited a literary journal and a university-level poetry anthology; serve as editor and member of the Board of Directors of Les Figues Press
• wrote and edited hundreds of Web-site reviews for a best-selling Barnes & Noble book
education
BA with Honors in English, 1989, University of Oregon
MA in English, 1991, University of Oregon
PhD in English, 1998, University of California Santa Barbara
employment
The Norman Lear Center, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California,
1/00-present
Deputy Director (7/06-present)
Assistant Director (1/00-7/06)
Knowledge Adventure, Torrance, CA ; 5/97-1/00
Web Producer / Web Analyst (5/99-1/00)
Digital Archivist / Content Librarian (5/97-5/99)
Blueprint R&D, San Francisco, CA; 2/99 - 5/99
Web consultant
Luckman Interactive, Inc., Los Angeles, CA; 8/96 - 5/97
Web-site reviewer
UCSB, Santa Barbara, CA; 9/91-8/96
Lecturer & Teaching Assistant
multimedia titles
Artists, Technology & the Ownership of Creative Content CD-ROM; Luckman's World Wide Web Yellow Pages CD-ROM; JumpStart 6th Grade; Grammar for the Real World; French & Spanish for the Real World; Fisher-Price Ready for School; Reading Blaster, Ages 4-6; Reading Blaster Vocabulary; Reading Blaster, Ages 9-12; Captain Kangaroo: Life’s First Lessons, and many others.
print titles
Norman Lear Center Press, 2001-present (editor); Warners’ War: Politics, Propaganda, & Pop Culture in Wartime Hollywood, 2004 (contributor & editor); Celebrity, Politics & Public Life, 2000-present (rapporteur); Entertainment Goes Global: Mass Culture in a Transforming World, 2001 (essay author); Luckman's World Wide Web Yellow Pages, 1997 (contributing editor); The Best of the Web, 1996 & 1997 Editions (contributing editor); Between Figures: Sex, Gender and Modernism, 1998 (PhD dissertation); Thresholds: Viewing Culture, 1996 (contributor); Lesbian Erotics, New York University Press, 1995 (contributor); The Poem: An Anthology, 1990 (asst. editor); The Timberline: A Literature and Arts Journal, 1990 & 1991 editions (asst. poetry editor in 1990 & fiction editor in 1991).