I’m a fourth-generation white American. My ancestors immigrated to the United States in a wave of European immigration in the late nineteenth century. As best my family can tell, they came from France, Germany, Finland, Ireland, Mongolia, and Russia.

I was born in Carlsbad, New Mexico, and I have lived and worked in various other parts of the United States, including Western Washington, East Tennessee, New York City, and Washinton DC.

Growing up, my mom had a keen eye for injustice. My brother and I learned early on about the violence of oppression. By the time I entered college and determined that I wanted to be a teacher, I’d become extremely passionate about changing the education system to be more equitable for all people.

In 2006, I began working as a high school teacher of language arts and social studies in East Tennessee. Over the next fourteen years, I worked in public high schools across the United States, earning my National Board teaching certificate in 2014. For most of that time, I participated heavily in grassroots activism and served as a union organizer of schools and communities around social justice issues.

I’ve been teaching and facilitating conversations with youth and adults about systems of oppression and their history for over seventeen years in schools, in community, and at conferences - including the Network for Public Education Conference, the Step Up Conference of Snohomish County, the Northwest Teaching for Social Justice Conference; the Teachers 4 Social Justice Conference; the Decolonizing Education Conference, and the Coalition of Essential Schools Fall Forum. I also collaborate with Martha Hurwitz to design racism awareness trainings for white folks that we deliver virtually and at some of these conferences.

In 2019, I decided to take a break from high school teaching because I knew I was going through a mid-life unraveling that needed more space to unfold. As a teacher, I had been involved in multiple systemic change efforts throughout my career, but I noticed that they often fell apart due to challenging human dynamics that went unresolved. Conflict sometimes tore communities and organizations apart, and I lost meaningful relationships. I started to see more clearly how necessary personal transformation is for those of us deeply involved in efforts toward systems transformation.

The summer after leaving teaching, I was attending an Undoing Racism workshop by The People’s Institute when I had a conversation that changed my life. I was taking a coffee break and talking to a fellow participant about the power of the People’s Institute training when I asked her who she thought was doing next-level oppression awareness work. That’s when she told me about the Processwork Institute. Two years later, I began their master’s training program.

For the past four years, partly through the study of Processwork, I’ve been heavily engaged in my own personal transformation work alongside the study and practice of integrating personal change with systems change.

Most recently, I’ve been working as a counselor intern at River’s Way Community Clinic of Portland, OR, and I recently graduated with a master’s degree in Process-Oriented Facilitation and Conflict Studies (otherwise known as Process-Oriented Psychology or simply Processwork) from the Processwork Institute of Portland, OR. Prior to Processwork, I earned a master’s in social studies education and a bachelor’s in history from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I also have a background in personal fitness training, bodywork, and nutrition.

In addition to Processwork, my facilitation style is strongly influenced by the principles of Structural Integration, Nonviolent Communication, Circle Work, and various schools of critical theory.