# A bit about my intersecting curiosities **September 2025** > [!check]+ The next professional chapter > Since June 2025 I have been on the hunt for what is next. I am educator and learning professional who is truly brings multiple perspectives and integrates work practices from higher-education, international organizations, and business consulting. As I look to the future, I know that I desire not to return to higher-education. (At least not for a while.) I am looking to either enter business consulting, learning and development, a special project in an international organization, or join the government. My areas of interest lie at the intersection of **educational technology (EdTech)**, **pedagogy**, and **organizational leadership**. As I reflect on where I was at the completion of my doctoral work and dissertation in 2013, my interests have changed and grown significantly with my experience. What learning looks like in design and action is different across industries, but is fundamentally the same – an effort to make people better. How learning is shaped with human involvement, technology integration, and visionary leadership is a continued puzzle and interest to me. Since 2013 I have been involved in 2 major trends/changes in **educational technology**: 1) the production of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and 2) the application of generative Artificial Intelligence (genAI). A long time ago, I saw EdTech as a tool to all learning. But the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2021) and the rise of genAI (2023-2025) had a profound impact on this view. Now my interest is in how to make EdTech a partner to the human relationships that are central to learning. I believe AI is the future of EdTech and we should grow/learn to see it as a partner, rather than merely a tool. Where asynchronous learning can still be incredibly beneficial, it feels stale and I am curious if the magic of human interactions can be even partially duplicated by AI to help provide solid partnership through learning design and the learning journey. Additionally, I still consider my core to be that of an **educator**. Although infused now with a strong consideration of business operations, efficiency in design processes, and bottom-line solutions driven. As an educator, I am fascinated by what can be learned, adopted, and interlinked across domains and disciplines. This is the benefit of having worked closely with business consultants, engineers, medical doctors, economists, attorneys, and a range of experts across the humanities. I am curious how to apply storytelling and design thinking to learning experiences pulling from all of these perspectives, and thus creating more enriching and effective learning. Furthermore, I am interested in creating learning experiences that truly help learners be better at what they do, or better prepared to do the work ahead. Teaching and learning with a purpose. Finally, I am very interested in **leadership** and the secret-sauce of what make *good leadership*. Prior to my directorship at George Washington University (GWU), I had been a leader on teams. But shaping the future, challenging operational norms, making decisions, finding consensus, working through conflicts, and challenging teams to think about and strive for more, really gave me an appreciation for the *good and bad leadership* I experienced and learned from. (So much of what I saw my leaders go through, as some things they told me in confidence, all make sense now.) I am fascinated in what makes teams/units within teams/department be successful and suffer failures. I am interested in the creation of culture and how to make it organic as opposed to a statement. I am most interested in how to use leadership to actualize learning into growth beyond the individual. There is a clear reason these are whole areas of study. And I hope to maybe be a part of those one day. Ideally, I'll get to explore and practice all of these in the years ahead. Regardless, one goal will remain and that is to return to higher-education as a teaching professor near the end of my career to pass on all of the lessons I have learned and a bit of the perspective I have gained to the next generation.