I am a Professor of Biology at the University of the Incarnate Word. I have served as Director of the Honors Program and as the Director for the NSF LSAMP program at UIW. Outside of UIW, I served as the co-Director for an NSF REU program at the Marine Biological Laboratory - Biological Discovery in Woods Hole for eight years. In all of these spaces I mentor undergraduates in my research lab where we investigate nerve regeneration in an annelid model, Lumbriculus variegatus. I have served as a councilor and as the treasurer for the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN) and the Chair for the Education Council of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB). Most recently I have served as a rotating program director in the Division of Equity for Excellence in STEM (EDU/EES) and the Division of Undergraduate Education (EDU/DUE) at the National Science Foundation.