My work and education has always existed at the intersection of community wellbeing, systems change, and culture transformation. I studied Political Science and Spanish at Colorado College, and later earned my Ph.D. in Applied Social and Community Psychology from North Carolina State University. My experiences have taken me from political organizing in Colorado, to policy research in DC, to criminal legal system-focused research and education in North Carolina, to community-grounded research in Hawaiʻi focused on homelessness, disability services, and quality of life. I’ve worked in university research labs, classrooms, courts, and grassroots spaces.

Over the past six years, much of my research and facilitation work has focused on how our society responds to harm, conflict, and trauma. In graduate school, I turned my attention to the criminal legal system, and the ways it too often reproduces shame, punishment, isolation, and further harm rather than healing or accountability. During and following school, I collaborated with judges, lawyers, students, and advocates to develop a robust program of research around trauma-informed and growth mindset-based approaches within courts and legal settings, contributing to some of the first empirical research on trauma-informed judicial practice. Through this work, my belief in and commitment to transformative justice and abolitionist philosophies continuously grew. I’ve come to believe that what we ultimately need is culture change: a shift toward communities rooted in care and accountability—communities where people know how to support one another, stay connected through conflict, and create the conditions for everyone to thrive. In my current role at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, I collaborate with community organizations, state agencies, and researchers on projects centered around wellbeing, quality of life, and building healthier systems of care in Hawaiʻi.

Alongside this work, birthwork has become an increasingly meaningful part of my life and practice. I completed DONA-approved postpartum and birth doula trainings in 2023 and 2024, and over the past several years, I’ve supported families through pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and early parenthood. To me, birthwork is deeply connected to community work: how we welcome new life, care for families, and hold people through moments of transition says so much about the kind of society we are building together.