I am a neurodivergent (diagnosed ADHD, self-diagnosed Autistic), nonbinary, white person who was partially raised by cats and trees and is now becoming a full people-person and dog-person. I’m a book person, a justice-seeking person, and sometimes a poet-person. Since I was tiny, I have loved sci-fi and fantasy and real-life community, aware of the rifts that make true community so challenging and the possibilities that make it so important.

My relationship with the education system is deep & complex: it was a source of strength for me and also a source of pain. That’s why I’ve been seeking to make it better throughout my career. I started as a community organizer at an education nonprofit. From there, I became an educator myself. I have a master of arts in teaching from Marylhurst University, an English degree with a theatre minor from Lewis & Clark College, and a few psychology courses and a lot of self-taught learning through my own healing journey and commitment to nerdery. In 2015, I figured out I had to heal to show up the way I wanted to as a teacher, and in 2020 I paused teaching to heal more. I went back as a math teacher and then found my way to higher education.

Most recently, I completed 321 total credit hours of training over three years to earn my Somatic Experiencing Practitioner credential from Somatic Experiencing, International and have worked over the same three years as an academic coach (and coordinated an academic coaching program.)

Somatic Experiencing worked for me in a way that other healing modalities hadn’t, and that’s why I got trained in it to share it with others. I’d done all I could from a talking-based perspective, and I was stuck — working in this modality helped me get unstuck, heal, and change at the nervous system level to create new possibilities and patterns for my life. I want to offer that to others, too.