From Olympian to Academic Entrepreneur

A dive into research

Dillette came to Auburn as a student-athlete with her sights set on competing in the 2008 Olympics. 

“I grew up in The Bahamas, and so I wasn't really familiar with the U.S. at all, but one of my swim teammates, Jeremy Knowles, was at Auburn and I thought ‘Why shouldn’t I go to the number one school in the country for the thing that I am most passionate about?’” Dillette recalled. “I had a lot of big dreams for swimming, but I always knew I wanted to study tourism. The combination of the swim program and the degree programs in the College of Human Sciences sealed the choice for me.”

A competitive swimmer at the high school level, she red-shirted her freshman year before going on to achieve accolades that included being a four-time All-American, SEC Academic Honor Roll, CSCAA Academic All-American and a coveted spot on the 2008 Olympic team for The Bahamas. 

“My undergraduate time at Auburn was very marked and molded by swimming and being an athlete,” Dillette says. “Swimming gave me discipline and drive.” 

Following a successful swimming career and an undergraduate degree in hotel and restaurant management, Dillette took advantage of an opportunity to stay at Auburn to pursue her graduate degrees on the advice of her mentor, Associate Professor Alecia Douglas. 

“Professor Douglas is from Jamaica, so we had that Caribbean connection, and she's a Black woman. I hadn't had very many Black professors at that point and it definitely made me think differently about what I could do with an advanced degree,” Dillette said. “During my graduate work, I got to know Professor Douglas more, found a passion in the research side of tourism and was inspired to become a professor one day.”

With the support and encouragement of Douglas, Professor Martin O’Neill and Associate Professor David Martin, she earned her master's and doctorate degrees in hotel and restaurant management – spending a total of 11 years at Auburn.

“As a graduate student, I was a member and on the board of our Black Graduate and Student Professional Association,” Dillette said. “That group really helped me to find my identity after being an athlete. It's a group of Black graduate students in all different fields, and I have tons of friends still from that group today. Being in that space helped me find my identity as a scholar.”

Academia and research inspire consulting business

Dillette is now an associate professor at San Diego State University. She has taught in the L. Robert Payne School of Hospitality & Tourism Management since 2016.

“My favorite thing about teaching is getting to know the students and their dreams,” Dillette said. “The tourism industry is really shifting and changing, so they help me constantly stay up with things. And I help them see themselves as the future leaders of the industry.”

While teaching is her passion, Dillette is also co-director of Tourism Reset, a multi-university and interdisciplinary research and outreach initiative that seeks to identify, study and challenge patterns of social inequity in the tourism industry, and is the co-founder of CODE, a research and consulting firm focused on collaborating on dialogue and equity to help organizations embrace challenges, foster understanding and drive positive change.

“Both of these organizations are research-based entities that challenge the status quo of the spoken and ‘unspoken’ inequities experienced by all stakeholders in the tourism ecosystem,” said Douglas. “I am tremendously proud of the many successes and tenacious spirit she exudes while pursuing her passion for equity in hospitality and tourism experiences.”

Tourism Reset is a collaborative of people who research race, ethnicity and social equity in tourism. 

“It's a place for people to find like-minded researchers that impact tourism — for example geographers, psychologists and historians — so we can create cross-disciplinary research on the industry,” Dillette said.

Through Tourism Reset, Dillette met her CODE co-founder Stefanie Benjamin and built a network that connected her to mainstream travel publications and organizations that can benefit from tourism research. 

“Within the industry, my co-founder and I were starting to see organizations that really want to make strides with diversity and inclusion in their marketing or within their organization. They want to create a more inclusive environment, but they don't have the expertise to do that, nor do they have the funds to hire a full-time person,” Dillette said. “With CODE, we combine our strong research backgrounds with teaching to help train the trainers on how to better create inclusivity within the industry.”

Dillette’s work translates into a broader variety of people represented in brand marketing for travel destinations, partnering with marginalized business owners in local tourism economies and encouraging diversity in tourism management positions. 

“There are quite a few studies that show the extreme disparity between who runs the tourism and hospitality organizations and who works in them,” Dillette said. “Hospitality is pretty heavy on the workforce being very diverse, but we want to encourage more diversity as the positions get higher.”

What's next

Dillette is working on new projects, teaching and building momentum with CODE.

“My goal is really to bridge the gap between academia and industry in tourism,” she said. “I want to mentor my students and young people entering the field and give back just as so many Auburn professors did for me along the way.”

“My advice: explore, be curious and realize you can continuously reinvent yourself and change your mind, if you want to,” Dillette said. “I want my students and all young people to know that you can always change your mind and find a new path.”