Welcome!

[Panorama of the Rockies, taken at Rocky Mountain National Park]

Who am I?

[Soren and his dog, Frida, at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado]

I am a bilingual (Spanish/English) education abroad professional and applied anthropologist with academic interests in the human geography and cultural anthropology of Latin America (particularly the southern Andean region of Ecuador). As an undergraduate at Augustana College, I discovered Geography and realized a lifelong dream to study abroad by participating in the 1991 Latin American Fall Quarter, which introduced me to Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Argentina and Chile (during a week off, I also traveled to Uruguay and Brazil). The following summer, I headed back to Cuenca, Ecuador, where I lived for a year with a host family, studied Spanish and completed an internship at a regional development agency. I returned home with a new understanding of the world--and a job in education abroad. I now have over a decade of professional experience in international education, including service to schools in Illinois, Kentucky, New York and Ecuador. A few years ago, I discovered Anthropology and headed off to graduate school at the University of Denver (DU), where I completed a Master of Arts in Anthropology (Ethnology track).

Thesis

My master's thesis, El Otro Lado: Considering the Impact of Education Abroad on Host Families in Cuenca, Ecuador, may be downloaded in parts or as a single PDF.

Links