The good stuff.
How I’ve helped people and businesses turn raw material into clear, credible content.
A quick note, because accuracy matters:
Some of the projects below were produced for freelance clients. Others are from my 15 years in professional communications roles, primarily at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I include both because the skills mirror the ones clients hire me for: finding your story, building the structure, and writing words that carry real institutional weight.
Spotlights
Brand storytelling & campaign content
The R&S Story: Two Decades of Customer-First Growth
I worked with R&S Logistics, a Knoxville-based third-party logistics company, to turn its humble beginnings and leadership transition into an evergreen story for its website. The project was built from interviews with the former founder, current president, and team members, then adapted into supporting LinkedIn and Instagram posts, brochure copy, and video messaging.
The project required careful, dignified, and precise handling of a meaningful company legacy. The final piece became more than a website story; it was used as homepage content, a blog post, video accompaniment and social copy, and was gifted to the former and current company leaders as part of the organization’s history.
Why it matters: Company stories are not just marketing assets. Done well, they help customers, employees, partners, and future hires understand the people, values, and history behind the business.
Website Content & Recruitment Messaging
Project CREDIBLE
I worked with the principal investigator of Project CREDIBLE, a National Science Foundation-funded research project at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, to improve the project’s public-facing communications. My work included a website content audit, project team bios and a recruitment letter to attract educators to the program’s next cohort. The project shows one of the things I do best: entering a specialized domain, asking the right questions, and turning complex work into clear, thoughtful content that reflects both the project’s aims and its spirit.
Why it matters: Academic and research projects need communication that goes beyond describing the work. It has to make the substance, significance, and human value of the work easier to understand.
Thought leadership and media pitching
Pathways to Decarbonizing the Rail Industry
I worked with Alex Scott, a supply chain management professor and transportation researcher, to adapt industry-relevant research on rail decarbonization for a practitioner audience. The project involved turning detailed analysis into trade-media-ready blog posts, then helping position the work for transportation and supply chain outlets.
I researched relevant trade publications, identified editors and contacts, developed custom pitch angles, and provided outreach materials Alex could use directly. One of those targets was Railway Age, where the article was eventually placed.
The project required translating technical research into clear public-facing thought leadership without flattening the substance. The goal was not to make the work simpler than it was, but to make it easier for the right audience to understand why it mattered.
Why it matters: Strong thought leadership does more than publish expertise. It positions the right content in front of the right audience, giving experts a clearer path to visibility, credibility, and industry influence.
Institutional storytelling and campaign content
Field Tested: UT Turfgrass Students Are Growing Careers on the Global Stage
I wrote a reported feature for Torchbearer magazine as part of a larger University of Tennessee campaign highlighting its research collaboration with FIFA ahead of the 2026 Men’s World Cup. The campaign was designed to draw national attention to UT’s turfgrass science program, showcasing the expertise of its leadership and telling the story of students gaining rare hands-on experience connected to the world’s biggest sporting event.
The feature required multiple layers of interviewing and research to understand the scale, the technical work behind elite playing surfaces, and the professional development opportunities available to UT turfgrass students. The goal was to make a story about a highly specialized academic program feel clear, human, and worthy of a global stage.
The story was so well received it was republished by SportsField Management Online.
Why it matters: Strong feature writing can turn technical expertise or an institutional campaign into a story people actually want to read, helping audiences understand not only what the work is, but why it matters.
Features & Profiles
Beyond client projects, I’ve spent years writing reported features, profiles and narrative stories for magazines, universities and national outlets. These stories show the muscles behind my client work: interviewing, research, voice, and knowing how to make people care.
Our Tennessee
Tess Frear’s Knoxville nonprofit turns diapers and donated supplies into a lifeline for families across East Tennessee.
A feature on how UT-ORII’s SMaRT program gives undergraduates from across the country hands-on access to big science, national-lab research and the first real glimpse of life as researchers.
In Jordan’s refugee camps, interior architect Rana Abudayyeh documents how temporary shelters become homes, neighborhoods and functioning cities through human ingenuity.
What began as a research partnership between UT forestry experts and Jack Daniel’s has grown into a decades-long effort to protect the trees behind Tennessee whiskey.
Torchbearer Magazine
Deeply Rooted (Cover Story)
A profile of Oscar-nominated filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon and her return to Appalachia to tell stories about home with the care, complexity, and honesty outsiders often miss.
A portrait of forensic anthropologist Amy Mundorff, whose work identifying 9/11 victims shaped a career devoted to science, closure, and the students carrying that mission forward.
The Sweet Life (Cover Story)
The story of Cruze Farm Dairy owners Colleen Cruze and Manjit Bhatti, who helped turn a family farm into one of Tennessee’s best-known ice cream brands.
A look inside the world of competitive college bass fishing, where UT students chase fish, trophies, and careers in the industry they love.
ESPN
Megha Vora Fights so Girls and Women in India Can Live Fearlessly
Martial artist Megha Vora and her work helping girls and women in India defend themselves and use their voices.
After summiting Mount Kilimanjaro on a bike, Samar Khan asks, 'What's next?'
Explorer Samar Khan decides whether the feat was only the beginning of what is possible for girls in Pakistan.
Knoxville Mercury
The Quiet Fighter (Cover Story)
Before he became a main-event name in the UFC, college football player Ovince Saint Preux trained in anonymity amid the violence of professional ascent.
Blood Sport (Cover Story)
A campus boxing tradition becomes a study in ritualized masculinity, philanthropy, spectacle, and the strange durability of Greek life.
At Home on the Turf (Cover Story)
In Knoxville’s indoor soccer leagues, the field becomes one of the few places where language, class and immigration status briefly matter less than the ball.
UT News
Alumna Combines Love of Spanish and Medicine to Serve Others
The story of physician Kelly Arnold, whose path through language and medicine led her to open a free clinic for Spanish-speaking patients.
Researchers Interpret Cherokee Inscriptions in Alabama Cave
The inscriptions in Manitou Cave offer a rare record of Cherokee voices from a sacred place, written in the shadow of the Trail of Tears.
Media Placements: Smithsonian, Cosmos, AL.com, Daily Mail
Assorted Publications
Where Every Song Has a Home, Speaking Volumes
UT’s music library is a reminder that archives are not only about saving things but about making them available to the next person who needs them.
Discovering Peace on the River, Tenkara Angler
A minimalist method of fishing becomes an unexpected way back into family history.
Sports open doors to a world of opportunities for disabled youth, World Bank
Going past feel-good inclusion toward the harder work of building opportunities that last for athletes with disabilities.
Marketing & Communications
Some of my strongest work has been done within larger institutions over more than a decade in content marketing, public relations, and content strategy roles. That work includes brand storytelling, website management, executive messaging, podcast and white paper production, media pitching, newsletter and speech writing, and social content.
Highlights include producing three podcasts; managing a website for a cooperative partnership among the U.S. State Department, ESPN, and the University of Tennessee; serving as the brand writer for the University of Tennessee; and earning gold, silver, and bronze writing awards from regional and national higher education associations for my feature writing.
Career Snapshot
Global Supply Chain Institute (2022-Present)
Associate director of marketing
Selected highlights:
Produce Tennessee on Supply Chain Management, a podcast on end-to-end supply chain issues, business trends, and challenges facing supply chain professionals. The show launched in 2021 and currently lists 60 episodes across four seasons.
Edit and support supply chain white papers authored by professors in the No. 1-ranked SCM program in North America. Based on research conducted with corporate partners, these provide practical insights for business leaders across logistics, procurement, manufacturing, planning, talent, and sustainability.
Manage web, email, social, and podcast content for audiences that include executive learners, faculty experts, students, and supply chain professionals.
University of Tennessee Office of Communications and Marketing (2018-22)
Brand writer & PR specialist
Served as a primary writer for major university brand stories, writing news and features for UT’s print and digital properties, including utk.edu. The audience scale matters here: more than 30,000 students, 10,000 employees, and a 259,000-person alumni network.
Selected highlights:
Wrote university news and feature stories across research, student experience, faculty expertise, SEC athletics, community impact, and institutional priorities.
Earned gold, silver, and bronze writing awards from the Tennessee College Public Relations Association and CASE.
Developed campaign stories for broad public audiences while navigating accuracy, institutional voice, multiple stakeholders, and the sacred art of making higher ed language sound like real humans were involved.
University of Tennessee (2017-Present)
Adjunct professor of journalism
Teach undergraduate writing courses in the College of Communication and Information, including sports reporting, multimedia writing, intermediate writing, and magazine and feature writing.
Center for Sport, Peace, and Society (2017-18) Digital content manager
Led content strategy and production for the center’s website and digital channels, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Issuu, SoundCloud, and Mailchimp. Produced website copy, press releases, longform stories, videos, podcast episodes, newsletters, and blog posts.
Global Sports Mentoring Program (2014-17)
Digital media coordinator
Served as communications lead for a U.S. Department of State initiative run in partnership with ESPN and the University of Tennessee to increase gender and disability inclusion through sports. Reported on 150 international exchange participants from more than 70 countries, oversaw rebranding for web, social, and print communications, and wrote and managed the 478-page GlobalSportsMentoring.org website.
The program was honored with a 2018 ESPN Sports Humanitarian Award and named the 2018 Peace and Sport Diplomatic Action of the Year.
ESPN (2014)
Statistics and information researcher
Led in-depth research for Spanish-language channels in the U.S., Mexico, and international affiliates, including work tied to the 2014 World Cup, NBA Finals, Wimbledon, Copa Libertadores, Tour de France, and International Champions Cup.