Academic Research Specializations

I integrate these research areas with my applied Services Offered — that means, regarding each of these topics, I can provide consulting, coaching, training, or speaking on these topics.

Coercive Control and High Control Behavior and Environments

Coercive control represents one of the most insidious forms of systematic abuse, operating through patterns of dominance, manipulation, and psychological warfare that strip individuals of their autonomy and agency.

Critical Media Ecology

Critical Media Ecology examines communication technologies not merely as tools transmitting content but as environments that actively shape perception, power, and culture. By integrating critical theory into media-ecological analysis, we uncover how communication infrastructures produce — and can contest systems of domination, surveillance, and inequality.

Discourse Analysis

Discourse analysis is a critical method for unpacking how language operates — shaping beliefs, strategies, and social realities. My work focuses on examining how discourse sustains systems of misconduct, reproduces authority structures, and enables oppressive practices like conversion practices. By scrutinizing the subtle rhetoric, “weasel words,” and ideological frameworks, I reveal how language functions as a tool of domination and resistance within institutions, religious fundamentalism, and social movements.

Ethics

Ethics forms the philosophical bedrock of all my coaching, consulting, and research endeavors. Far from abstract theorizing, my approach to ethics centers on practical moral philosophy—the rigorous study of how we should live, act, and organize collective life in ways that advance human flourishing and social justice. This page explores my grounding in secular moral formation, applied organizational ethics, and liberation-centered frameworks for ethical decision-making across personal and institutional contexts.

Organizational Culture and Dynamics

Most organizational culture initiatives focus on changing attitudes and behaviors without addressing the structural conditions that shape those attitudes. This approach often fails because it treats symptoms rather than causes.

My framework addresses:

• Resource allocation that reveals organizational priorities and values
• Power structures that determine whose voices are heard
• Economic systems that create competition and scarcity rather than collaboration
• Communication patterns that reflect and reinforce hierarchies
• Decision-making processes that exclude affected communities

Power

Power not as a single, monolithic force — nor always bad — but it is an ecology in of itself that shape what counts as freedom, legitimacy, and possibility. Power circulates through capitalist markets, religious hierarchies, anti-LGBTQ politics, and more—often hiding in plain sight by making itself feel like the air we breathe. I explore how power and show how my liberation-centered coaching and consulting help you recognize, challenge, and transform those dynamics in your life and work.

Queer Theory

Queer theory is a critical tradition that dismantles the idea that heterosexuality, binary gender, cis embodiment are natural, inevitable, or sufficient explanations for human experience. Rooted in post-structuralism and feminist thought, the field emerged in the early 1990s out of gay and lesbian studies, women’s studies, and activist movements confronting state inaction during the AIDS crisis. Key scholars—including Judith Butler, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Michel Foucault, and Gloria Anzaldúa—challenged biological essentialism and identity politics, arguing instead that sexuality and gender are historically contingent, discursively produced, and always entangled with race, class, nation, and capitalism.

Social Theory

I situate my work in critical social theory, drawing on the Frankfurt School’s of culture and power, Judith Butler’s insights on performativity, and queer theory’s critique of normativity. Consumerism, propaganda, and everyday practices reproduce domination — and liberation-centered interventions can disrupt these dynamics.

Sociology of Religion

I approach the sociology of religion as both a rigorous academic discipline and a site of liberation-centered inquiry. Far from merely cataloguing religious beliefs and practices, my work explores how power, discourse, and social structures shape religious experience while examining religion’s role in both perpetuating and challenging systems of domination. Drawing on my doctoral research at Western Michigan University, my extensive background in theological studies, and my commitment to critical theory, I offer a sociology of religion that centers justice, interrogates authority, and amplifies marginalized voices within religious communities and institutions.

Theology and Religious Studies

I bring to theology and religious studies both academic rigor and liberation-focused conviction. With doctoral training in sociology of religion, two master’s degrees in religious studies, and extensive research on coercive control, fundamentalism, and moral formation, I explore how belief systems shape power, identity, and social change. Here, I outline my core specializations, methodological commitments, and collaborative pathways for engaging theology as both critical inquiry and praxis.

Esotericism, Hermeticism, and Heterodoxies

My work in esotercisms, hermeticism, and religious heterodoxies bridges historical scholarship, critical social theory, and liberation‐centered praxis. Drawing on my doctoral training in sociology of religion, my graduate degrees in religious studies, and research in spiritualities, I explore how hidden traditions — metaphysical teachings, ritual practices, and alternative cosmologies — shape individual and collective pathways toward meaning, power, and social transformation.

Working Together: Next Steps

Curious how these research specializations can accelerate your initiatives? Book a complimentary discovery call to clarify objectives, outline the collaborative process, and determine whether individual coaching, team workshops, or program design engagements best fit your needs.
Reach out via the Contact page to begin.

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