I am a licensed master social worker (LMSW), Certified Lactation Counselor (CLC), lifelong advocate for children and families, former teacher and victim advocate, artist, and a mother of two wonderful elementary-aged children. I am bilingual in Spanish and English.

Anchorage, Alaska has been my home since childhood, but I spent some of my early adult years in the Lower 48 attending Mount Holyoke College for undergrad and University of Michigan for graduate school and teaching 3rd grade in a Spanish-English dual immersion program in California’s Bay Area. I have also lived in Oaxaca, México and Bogotá, Colombia; and I have had the honor of working and traveling extensively throughout rural Alaska. I have been to every region of our great state except one, and have spent extensive time in Alaska’s Northwest Arctic.

I have always taken an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach, working in diverse teams of people and melding arts, research, writing, advocacy, program management, fundraising, community organizing and outreach. I credit this interdisciplinary and community-based approach for the successes I’ve had, from arts awards and Alaska’s Top 40 under 40 award to being the only Alaskan ever selected to Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Culture of Health Leaders program, from the passage of a Trauma-Informed Government bill to successful grant-writing for program funding to regulatory changes in childcare policy. I believe in listening to people — especially those who face the most marginalization and those who are most directly impacted by issues — and elevating their perspectives through arts or research to advocate for change.

I believe in the wisdom of people to design solutions to the problems they face, and would love to help your agency to partner with communities and to plan and carry out projects to improve people’s lives.