about
My commitment to students and schools has been a life-long passion.
Professional Summary
I’ll never forget the way my grandfather summed up my remarks about my work–“So what you’re saying is you have to learn students before you can teach them.” When seeking to provide students with impactful social and emotional learning experiences, learning about who students are is about much more than engagement and motivation. In my time as a public school teacher, I saw firsthand the profound impact of connecting with students’ personal stories as a means of facilitating learning that is both authentic and enduring. Today, I use my background in both psychology and education to curate social emotional learning experiences that are reflective of local communities, identities, and histories.
Education has been a lifelong passion of mine.
- I earned my Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. As part of my focus in educational psychology, I completed research on how feeling a sense of belonging in school helps to enrich students’ lives.
- I served as high school teacher in Miami, FL where I was recognized as a top Rookie Teacher in my local region.
- While still in the classroom, I earned my Masters in Education from Johns Hopkins University.
- Currently, I am a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago where I am researching the influence of community, culture and identity on SEL instructional strategies. During my time here, I have also served as a research assistant to both the Trauma Responsive Educational Practices Project and the Consortium for Chicago School Research.
- My time in graduate school has culminated into the founding of We SHINE, an organization committed to creating social and emotional learning resources that are responsive to local communities, identities and histories.
My current work provides me with an opportunity to leverage my multidisciplinary perspective, merging concepts from psychology, education and social work to design tools and resources that consider the whole child— including the context in which they live.