Applied impact

Scholarship in Practice

From higher education classrooms to Michigan small businesses, K-12 schools, and university-wide policy — this work was designed to be used. These are the places where frameworks, tools, and teaching have been adopted, deployed, and built upon.

Practitioner adoption
Michigan SBDC · Google.org Initiative

AI Literacy Framework adopted for small business education

The Michigan Small Business Development Center — part of a national network supporting small business growth — cited the AI Literacy Framework as a core framework in their official guide on Artificial Intelligence for Small Businesses. This is part of America's SBDC AI U, a national initiative supported by a $10 million Google.org grant to equip small businesses across the United States with AI literacy and tools.

This represents a direct bridge from academic framework development to practitioner adoption at scale — entrepreneurs and small business owners across Michigan are navigating AI using a framework developed and validated in higher education.

Michigan SBDC AI Guide Cover
Institutional leadership
WMU AI Graduate Fellow · 2024–2025

University-wide AI integration reference

As AI Graduate Fellow at WMUx, served as the institutional reference point for AI integration at Western Michigan University. Contributions included:

Institutional AI Policy — Contributed to university-wide AI policy development by synthesizing current AI policies, reviewing emerging literature, and providing structured feedback to align policy with best practices in responsible AI integration.
Faculty Development — Delivered faculty-wide sessions across the university on AI integration, ethical use, and practical implementation strategies. Provided one-on-one consultation to educators navigating AI in their courses.
AI Teaching Innovation Mini-Grants — In Spring 2025, WMU Teaching and Learning awarded a series of AI Teaching Innovation Mini-Grants to select faculty to support the development and piloting of AI-integrated teaching innovations. Served this initiative by facilitating group sessions to help grant recipients identify and design their AI integration innovations, providing one-on-one consultation, supporting faculty developing custom GPTs and Gems, and reviewing grant applications with recommendations to strengthen proposed innovations.
Grand Rapids Tech Week — Presented and served as panelist at Grand Rapids Tech Week 2024 on AI applications from classroom to real-world contexts.
K-12 & community reach
IIColab 2025 · Keynote

Ethical AI use for K-12 educators

Delivered the keynote address at the Instructional Innovation Colab (IIColab) 2025, hosted by WMUx and Kalamazoo Public Schools. The audience was K-12 educators navigating AI adoption in their schools — a population that rarely receives research-grounded guidance on responsible AI. The session focused on ethical AI use, practical integration strategies, and how to support students in developing healthy, critical relationships with AI tools.

WMU Institutional Resources
AI and Critical Thinking in Education
Strategies for protecting independent thinking and preventing cognitive dependency in AI-integrated learning environments. Addresses Layer 7 of the seven-layer framework ecosystem.
View at wmich.edu →
Planned, Structured, Supervised: Student-AI Interaction
A framework for designing intentional student-AI interaction in courses — moving beyond unregulated use toward purposeful integration. Published operationalization of Layer 3 of the seven-layer ecosystem.
View at wmich.edu →
Implementation Guidance for AI-Restricted Courses
Practical guidance for faculty designing courses where AI use is limited — supporting clear expectations and ethical course design aligned with the LTTR framework.
View at wmich.edu →