ABOUT CAROLYN

My story begins in a walk-in closet, where I spent countless hours looking at family archives.
Photos, letters, passports, birth certificates, marriage licenses, newspaper articles and even recipes helped me to learn about and reconstruct my family’s past and inspired a lifetime of searching and preserving. I've always treasured anecdotal stories about days gone by as well as inspirational lessons learned along the way.
I believe that my warmth, openness and thoughtful interest make me the perfect midwife for your cherished personal narrative.  I am curious, intuitive, and someone who cares deeply, which means you can entrust me to treat your valued memories with discretion and accuracy.  My other passions include: Genealogy, The Moth Podcast, dance, cultivating longterm friendships and, of course, living my best story with my husband Joe, daughter Rebecca and our rescue dog Shasta (whose early story we will never know).

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE AND AFFILIATIONS

Oral Historian for Social Capital Academy
Cal State Fullerton, 2020 - Present

Leveraging stories to match under-represented, first generation, working college students with selected mentors and career professionals.  A pilot program designed to provide personal and career-related development guidance as students work on their life stories and build skills for how to engage the world of work.
 

Sharpen Your Skills Advanced Workshop
Baylor University Institute for Oral History, May 2020
Advanced Interviewing Techniques.

Oral History Association Annual Meeting
Salt Like City, Nevada, October 2019
Pathways in the Field: Consideration for those Working In, On, and Around Oral History.

Southwest Oral History Conference
California State University at Fullerton, April 2018
Elevating Voices: Oral Histories of Resilience and Unity.

Getting Started With Oral History
Baylor University Institute for Oral History, February 2018
Oral history project planning, interviewing techniques, equipment choices, ethical and legal considerations, and tips for preserving and sharing interviews.

Oral History Workshop
UC Berkeley Oral History Center, February 2018
The "nuts-­and-­bolts" of oral history including methodology and ethics, practice, and recording.

California Listens Project, May 2017
A statewide digital storytelling project of the California State Library, implemented by Berkeley based StoryCenter, to capture digital stories by California citizens about life and experience in the Golden State.  See a film about the project here.

Member, Southwest Oral History Association
SOHA serves oral historians throughout the Southwestern U.S. and continuous regions by offering support for publications and research, awards and scholarships, networking, and meetings and workshops.

Member, Mill Valley Historical Society
A non-profit organization formed  "to gather, catalog and preserve the records and memorabilia relating to the City of Mill Valley, Marin County, California, and environs, to provide means for the dissemination of this material to the public, to celebrate the community’s historic past and changing present, and to organize Marin County residents and other persons to support these objectives.”