I am a PhD student at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA in their English department and an instructor of writing at University of California Merced. I am originally from Sacramento, CA and I am a lifelong Athletics fan who has been going to the Oakland Coliseum for games since 1990, when I was 8 years old. My first Athletics player autograph was Dave “Hendu” Henderson who was unbelievably kind and welcoming to me when I was a kid. Beyond going to 10-20 games a year throughout my childhood, I even worked for the Sacramento River Cats when they were an A’s affiliate while I was in my undergraduate at Sonoma State University back in 2001.
As an academic, my research interests are in professional and technical communication, rhetoric, and composition pedagogies. I recently finished my first year of my PhD program at ODU. Also, I have just recently presented at the NINE Conference at Spring Training in Arizona on the Oakland Athletics fan subculture movements and will be presenting at the NINE Virtual Conference in October. I have also recently submitted a research article for publication on sports culture and relocation conversations to an academic journal (pending acceptance).
If you want to see more about my academic work please go to https://sites.wp.odu.edu/plovas/sample-page/.