Whitney went to college with the intention of being an imagineer (an engineer who designs rides for Disney theme parks). When her education took a different turn, she decided to follow a path that led to environmental engineering and water resource management. After completing her Master’s Degree in Environmental Engineering, she gained experience working as a permit reviewer for state government and spent time as a reclamation design engineer. After some time as a practicing engineer, Whitney decided she needed something more in her life, so she followed her passion into the seminary where she studied as an interfaith minister and became ordained in 2012.

When she completed seminary, Whitney realized she could not continue to work in her particular field of engineering and subsequently decided to return to school to get her PhD. Whitney had intended to get her PhD for a number of reasons, but pursuing a career in academia was not one of them. However, to earn a little extra money, she applied to teach Physics Labs at a local community college. That’s when she fell in love with teaching and chose to teach at community colleges and R1 universities.

Even before obtaining her PhD, Whitney had dreams of teaching engineering at a liberal arts college, so she is extremely excited to be teaching and working with students at Earlham College in Richmond, IN, where she is directing the new engineering program and developing an engineering major with a focus on engineering design.

In addition to being an engineer, Whitney is an ordained minister, mindfulness coach, and spiritual director (trained through Sycamore Spirituality Center, Inc.). She loves outdoor sports (SCUBA diving, hiking, biking, kayaking, and pickleball), martial arts (she is a blackbelt in TKD, a red belt in Krav Maga, and is currently learning Kung Fu), baking, cooking, and photography.

Whitney has been attending Quaker Meeting since 2006 and served as clerk of a Quaker Meeting in Lexington, KY, for two years – and she learned a lot from that experience.

She is looking forward to bringing her wealth of experiences with team building, conflict management, mindfulness, martial arts, and life into a space with other spiritual seekers to share all the different ways that contemplation in her spiritual, educational, and interpersonal worlds has helped her find inner peace and calm during some very stressful times.