For the past few years, I’ve been working with The Nature Conservancy in New York as part of the NY Cities team. My work focuses on local partnership building that promotes the long-term health of the NYC urban forest through project management, grant-making, and public engagement. Before this, I worked with the Fund for Public Health in NYC in collaboration with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene on projects related to birth equity: sharing information about life-threatening childbirth complications with community members, developing social media content and events, and supporting the Bureau of Maternal, Infant and Reproductive Health to address racial disparities in maternal health outcomes.

Previously, I was a research assistant with the Center on Social Disparities in Health at the University of California-San Francisco. I worked on projects related to racial disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes across the state of California, including a Financial Empowerment Program and a Photovoice project.

Additionally, I conducted research and wrote about economic insecurity, public assistance programs, and racial wealth disparities as a policy analyst with the Asset Building Program at New America, a D.C.-based think tank. I focused in particular on the Family Self-Sufficiency Program and other strategies to improve rental assistance programs. 

During 2010 and 2011, I was a Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellow and conducted research in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. about barriers to food access, changes to federal nutrition policy, and the impact of social and economic policies on people with low income.

I also trained as an abortion doula and have experience providing physical and emotional support to people before, during, and after their abortions. I was a co-founder of the D.C. Doulas for Choice Collective, and volunteered at an independent women’s health clinic as a doula. During my time in D.C., I also volunteered as an outreach and hotline volunteer with HIPS, a harm reduction organization that provides safer sex supplies, a syringe exchange program, STI testing, and other services to people engaged in sex work and/or drug use. 

I live in Brooklyn, New York with my partner and two children, and have a B.A. in Geography and Community & Global Health from Macalester College, in St. Paul, Minnesota. In my free time, I enjoy taking long walks, exploring cities using public transportation, and cooking and baking.