JENNIFER LARGE SEAGRAVE portrait
  • Associate Professor (Lecturer), Undergraduate Studies
801-599-3569

Research Summary

While my dissertation work focused on 20th century plays about saints, my professional work has mainly focused on ethics of technology. I teach and develop curriculum for first year engineering students. I am currently working on a research project to assess the effectiveness of our LEAP Peer Advising program, of which I am the coordinator. Hopefully this work will lead to expansion and improvements in our Undergraduate Studies peer mentoring programs.

Education

  • Bachelor of Arts, English, UCLA. Project: Medieval and Renaissance Literature
  • Master of Arts, English, University of Utah. Project: British and American Literature
  • PhD, English/British and American Literature, University of Utah. Project: Modern Saints' Plays: A History of the Genre

Biography

As I grea up in California, my undergraduate studies took place at UC Berkeley and UCLA. I started at Cal as a structural engineering major but soon decided to pursue more arts related education and finished my BA in English with an emphasis in medieval literature at UCLA. While there, I participated in an Indonesian education abroad program in Yogyacarta, Java, where I attended Universitas Gadjah Mada. 

After a four-year stint as a demonstration chef, florist, cheese buyer, and wine specialist at WholeFoods, I completed a master's degree in English with an emphasis in the Teaching of Writing at Humboldt State University, near California's coastal border with Oregon. I did various things after than including cheese buying and department managing, furniture rental consulting, and teaching Writing 101 at Harbor and Orange Coast Colleges in Southern California. I continued in th teaching of writing and humanities at University of Phoenix Utah and Online campuses for 12 years.

My higher education focus began in earnest when I completed a second mater's degree in English Literature at University of Utah before moving on to the PhD program. While in graduate school, I worked in the CLEAR Program (Communication, Leadership, Ethics, and Research) in the College of Engineering. I collaborated with professors, teaching communication components in core engineering courses for eight years in the Departments of Civil and Environmental, Electrical and Computer, Chemical, Geotechnical, and Biomedical Engineering. 

My professorial career began and has continued in the LEAP FIrst Year Learning Community Program for Engineering students. Our courses focus on ethics, sustainability, technology, humanities, and diversity education for engineers. 

I also coordinate the LEAP Peer Advisor program that establishes a second-year LEAP student as a peer mentor in each section of LEAP (about 30). I train and lead the mentoring cohort each year in efforts to help first-year undergraudate students find resources, attain goals, and get involved in student groups and events. 

My research interests concern assesment of mentoring programs, GE curriculum development, and the secularizing of heroic saints and gods in 21st-century Marvel films.