History
I started designing lights for my high school drama club when I was 14, and I never looked back. I discovered a passion for visual storytelling, creating worlds with light, and being part of the close-knit theatre community. While earning my BA at the University of Alabama, I became involved in touring concerts. I seized any opportunity to design for local community productions, regardless of the limited gear available.
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After graduating, I designed for a touring classical ballet company and several professional theatres. That eventually led me to Miami, where I worked as a production electrician at the Coconut Grove Playhouse. I quickly began designing for their second stage and eventually their main stage, where I earned membership in United Scenic Artists.
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Summers were spent at the Flat Rock Playhouse in North Carolina, where I designed 8 to 10 shows each season. Through those intense summers, I connected with directors and producers who began hiring me at regional theatres throughout the Southeast. That network helped me land design work with Paramount Productions, creating shows for cruise ships and theme parks.
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In 2004, a life-changing accident forced me to rethink how I could continue pursuing my passion. That journey brought me to Carnegie Mellon University, where I earned my MFA in 2010. I then spent eight years at Coastal Carolina University, helping shape their BFA Design and Technology program.
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In 2020, I joined Florida State University to relaunch their MFA Lighting Design program, where I currently teach and mentor the next generation of lighting artists.
"My heart is in the work"
That is Carnegie Mellon University’s motto, and it couldn’t ring truer for me, whether I’m in the theatre as a designer or in the classroom as a teacher. I bring my full self to every project and every student interaction. I believe in creating meaningful, collaborative work and in helping students grow not just as designers but as curious, engaged humans.
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I approach the teaching of lighting design as equal parts technical mastery, emotional intuition, and artistry. My goal is to train lighting designers who are not only proficient with the tools of the trade, but who also understand how light shapes story, emotion, and experience.
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Lighting design requires a solid foundation in equipment, optics, color theory, and control systems. I emphasize this technical knowledge in the classroom and through hands-on application. Mastery of these fundamentals provides the structure within which creativity can thrive.
But technique alone isn’t enough. Lighting is also an expressive art form. I encourage students to develop a sensitivity to rhythm, tone, and space, and to recognize how light can do more than illuminate; it can breathe life into a moment. Light can evoke intimacy or distance, memory or anticipation. It can alter mood, shift perspective, and guide emotional response, often with the most delicate of gestures.
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Collaboration is central to my teaching. I help students understand how lighting design functions as part of a larger creative dialogue, with directors, scenic and costume designers, performers, and technicians. I teach them to be responsive, adaptive, and thoughtful collaborators, prepared to contribute meaningfully to a production’s visual and narrative goals.
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Above all, I strive to create a learning environment where precision and experimentation are equally valued. I challenge students to be curious, bold, and intentional, to find the balance between structure and spontaneity, planning and play. Great lighting design often feels effortless, but that ease comes from discipline, trial and error, and a profound understanding of human motivations.
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I mentor students to work confidently across a range of media and formats, including film and television, animation, themed entertainment, concerts and events, circus, architectural and museum lighting, as well as traditional theatre, dance, and opera. At the core, my goal is to cultivate light artists, and powerful visual storytellers.