The Community Manager at Sun Microsystems for the open-source project OpenOffice.org, I manage community and product development strategy. More particularly, I determine and coordinate Project policy and goals for both community activities and product identity and marketing, build developer business and government interest in the Project and product, initiate, develop, and coordinate partner relations with ISVs, enterprises, educational institutions and government IT offices, write analytical and informative articles on open source and OpenOffice.org, and present on open source and OpenOffice.org at international conferences. I am the Chair of the OpenOffice.org governing body, the Community Council, as well as Project Lead or Co-Lead of the Education, Distribution, BizDev (business development), Website, Native Language (translation, support, information), and Incubator projects.

From the inception of OpenOffice.org in 2000 to the end of June 2007, I managed the OpenOffice.org community and consulted on open-source governance and project set up for CollabNet. For OpenOffice.org I helped to set up the governance and distribution structure, the Native Language Projects organization, created the content for much of the overall project, represented the project at international conferences and events, and coordinated the project's marketing and development strategy. In addition, I acted as the liaison with the project stakeholders.

The initial and lead copywriter for the e-commerce site eLuxury, associated with the LVMH luxury concern, I wrote all catalog, ad and review copy, established the site's tone and style, and supervised a cadre of freelance copywriters.

As one of the Mark Twain Project’s primary researchers, I documented many of Mark Twain’s more than 15,000 signature letters and manuscripts, producing finding aids and informational guides to be used both by the editors and visiting scholars. I further helped to research and curate exhibitions of Twain’s work and helped to initiate a program presenting lectures on Twain to professional and nonprofessional audiences.

I designed and implemented lecture and seminar courses in English and Rhetoric for undergraduate students. These courses used contemporary cultural debates to teach writing skills and strategies. In addition, I created and managed the budget and technology of a then-innovative Web-based system that enabled more than 500 students from ten large lecture courses in the English department to continue discussion sessions online. I published and presented critical papers on contemporary American culture at national and international conferences.

Ph.D., English, University of California, Berkeley, 1999

A.B. English, University of California, Berkeley (Honors)

"Tramp Discourse: The Figure of the Tramp in the United States at the Turn of the Century"

Committee: Carolyn Porter, Chair; Samuel Otter, Thomas Laqueur

Humanities Graduate Research Grant, 1997. (Awarded for research at Cambridge University and Houghton Library)

University of California, Berkeley Graduate Fellowship, 1988 – 1990