I came to career services through years of practice before I came to it through research, and that order matters.

Early in my career, I worked in international education and career services in both the United States and Europe, including helping build and direct one of the first international career centers at a German university. This practical foundation led me to pursue a PhD in Educational Leadership at Miami University, where my research examined how universities build, fund, and sustain career services for international students. My doctoral research was comparative by design: I was interested in what different institutional and national contexts could teach us about structure, sustainability, and equity in career services.

That work eventually led to a senior-level role at the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), where I managed stakeholder development and a large research portfolio that impacted national policy on career services for international students. This included overseeing an economic impact study and authoring a research report on international student retention and labor market integration. Those experiences gave me a advanced understanding of what it takes to design career services that actually work for students — and what happens institutionally when they don't.

The lens of asking what career services can be, not just what it currently is — shapes everything I do as a practitioner and leader.

I'm now focused on two intersecting questions. The first is ecosystem design: how institutions move career development out of a single office and into the fabric of the student experience by connecting curriculum, faculty, employers, and alumni in ways that are intentional and measurable. The second is postsecondary value: how career centers collect, interpret, and communicate outcome data to the stakeholders who need it most, at a moment when higher education is under significant pressure to demonstrate its worth. My current research, supported by the John Steele Grant from the Midwest Association of Colleges and Employers, examines data practices in career centers across the Midwest.

These aren't separate projects. They're two sides of the same conviction: that career centers and career services, done well, are some of the most important assets a university can invest in, and that our field needs leaders willing to make that case clearly and with evidence.