My Academic Career and What I Want for You as an Academic Woman

In this introductory episode of the Academic Woman Amplified podcast, I’m sharing my story with you from my first love of writing to becoming a fully tenured professor while raising a growing family. I share lessons I’ve learned as an academic and a woman and how those experiences have shaped my life and career. 

On this podcast, we’ll talk about writing as the currency of your academic career, and I’ll share advice on how to manage all the moving parts each semester. 

My Beginnings as a Writer

I have always loved writing and reading. From the time I was a little girl I’ve wanted to make my living writing, but didn’t know how I would do that. In college I followed my love of writing and teaching from being an ESL teacher to earning my PhD in English language learning. After that, I went on to become a tenured professor at the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez.

Tenure Track, Pregnancy, and Learning How to Make it Work

As I was starting on my tenure track, I became pregnant. Having a baby during this process forced me to figure out who I wanted to be as an academic. I also had to figure out how to do things efficiently to accomplish the necessary writing and publishing. 

Because I had to navigate the pressures of new motherhood and academia, I was able to develop a writing system that wasn’t normally taught, but that worked for me. I developed a way to harness my best focused energy and use that for writing.

“Motherhood really forced me to figure out how to get the job done in a more efficient way.”

What I Want for You as an Academic Woman

Due to uncertain circumstances at my University, I started to reflect on what I wanted to do with my life and career. I realized that colleagues often asked me how I was able to write and publish prolifically despite a heavy course load as a professor and the demands of family. 

Through these questions, I recognized that sharing my knowledge with other academic women was what I really wanted to do. 

“My favorite part of this work is talking to academic women about writing.”

For the past four years I have been coaching academic women. Because of my own experiences as a woman in the current academic culture, I am on a mission to help women like me to harness focused energy, create writing systems and pipelines that work without the burnout, write to secure resources, and amplify voices in their academic arenas. 

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