Doctoral Research

I am a doctoral candidate at Teachers College, Columbia University, in the EdD program in Dance Education. My research focuses on the intersection of transformative adult learning and multi-modal reflective practice in professional learning in dance education. Specifically, I am investigating the impact of multimodal reflective practice on female-identifying, mid- to late-career dance educators linked to their dance educator identity.

My dissertation, titled Teaching from the Heart: Multimodal Reflective Practice in Professional Learning in Dance Education, draws on the voices of nine participants from across the country. Through this study, I employ poetic inquiry and poetic portraiture as alternative methods of data analysis and interpretation.

Poetic inquiry expands the boundaries of traditional academic writing by embracing forms of meaning-making that are expressive, embodied, and emotionally resonant. Aligned with feminist methodologies that seek to recover marginalized voices, poetic inquiry offers a space where women can share their lived experiences in authentic and powerful ways.

Using this approach, I transform interviews, transcripts, observations, and reflective journals into poetry that honors the nuance and complexity of each participant’s story. The poems in my research are created using both "found poetry"—drawn directly from participants’ own words—and "generated poetry", interpreted and composed by me as the researcher. In this framework, poetic inquiry serves as both a method and a product, allowing participants’ voices to be both heard and deeply felt.

Please listen to the following two poems, created using poetic inquiry as part of my pilot study, Moving from the Center.