I used to be an academic. You’d think I still was, to judge from my bookshelves. I studied English at Saint Martin’s University and Comparative Literature at the University of Washington, because I love teaching, and because I love the short story genre. But a pragmatist to the bitter end, I ultimately left academia with a heavy heart for a career that didn’t involve terminal job insecurity.

I began editing architectural photography professionally, part-time, in 2008, and carried on throughout college, then grad school, and then after. At some point, improbably enough, I became that company’s Chief Operations Officer on top of Creative Director, and that’s what I’ve done ever since, also acquiring a couple of digital and content marketing certifications along the way. I’ve channeled my passion for education into teaching photography and photo editing to my Production Artists, along with anyone else who’d like to demystify Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, and InDesign.

In a twist of fate I would never have predicted, I returned to my alma mater in 2021 as an adjunct professor, to teach digital photography and editing to undergraduates. So in the end it’s all come full circle, all for the love of photography.

Still, forever a recovering literature major, I also sometimes travel and write about it. Other things, too. Most recently, I co-authored an article entitled “Margaret Atwood and Women’s Dystopic Fiction” with my husband, Jeff Birkenstein, whose website I haven’t yet designed (sorry!).

Together with our daughter, we live with our sweet old puppy, Zoe, a family of deer, and an opinionated barred owl, tucked away in a forest in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Our daughter's birth flower is the logo of Theorie Creative.