Soft Skills

At World Learning (2016-now)

  • Education specialist for the USAID project Uzbekistan Youth Employability Skills (YES)

  • HQ Technical coordinator for the USAID project Quality Instruction Towards Access and Basic Education Improvement 2 (QITABI 2) in Lebanon. Overseeing content production of teaching and learning materials for grades 1-6 for English with social and emotional learning (SEL) integrated throughout. Collaborating on teacher training.

  • Lead designer of the OPEN (Dept. of State) online teacher training course The Integration of Critical Thinking into the Exploration of Culture in an EFL Setting (ICT)

  • Developed the English and psychosocial support curricula for the Syrian Refugee Kids Can Code project, funded by, Catalyst Foundation for Universal Education, Arbat Refugee Camp in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq

At The House of English, Valparaíso, Chile, September 2015 – February 2016.

  • Founded an English language center in Chile, focused on providing transformative experiential learning activities for business professionals to develop their communicative English and soft skills

  • Conceptualized and ran programs using innovative paradigms including theatre, interactive and improvisational formats, and immersion camps

Presentations and Workshops


Soft Sciences for Hard Times: Healthy Prioritization for the Future of Second Language Acquisition and Teaching. SLAT Roundtable, University of Arizona, February 2022


Teaching Creative and Critical Thinking: Paving the Way for Student Success in the 21st Century, Virtual Exchange: Embedding Life and Career Skills in Language Instruction, DOS, October 2021


Questions that engage critical thinking, TESOL-Kosovo (KETNET), Prishtina, Kosovo, June 2018.


Can charisma be taught to EFL students? Invited opening plenary, National Teachers’ Conference, Instituto Guatemalteco Americano, Guatemala City, November 2018.

Team building across cultures, workshop done on behalf of Baobab People for Youth in Need, Saint Louis, USA, May 2015.


Can charisma be taught to ESL students? ABS International, Buenos Aires, Argentina, February 2015.


Positivos, seguros y dinámicos: Speak up! through the community organization Latinos en Axión, Sept. 2014.