I am a parent, a scholar, an educator, and much more! I have two kids, a third grader at Graham & Parks and a 6 month old baby. Since Spring 2024 I have served on the Graham & Parks School Council. I chair the Budget Subcommittee where I have been working alongside other caregivers and staff members to improve school discretionary budgets and spending practices to be more responsive to classroom needs. In addition, I am an active member of the Solidarity Squad — a diverse group of caregivers, educators, and community members dedicated to strengthening caregiver-educator relationships in the district while collaborating to address shared concerns around the unequal distribution of resources across our 17 schools. You can read more about our work here, and at our website where you can review our 2025 district budget priorities in more detail.

I grew up in northern California and attended public K-12 schools, took classes at the local community college (Santa Rosa Junior College), and earned my BA in History from UC Davis in 2008.

For two years I worked as a substitute teacher in some northern CA k-12 public school districts as I explored teacher credential programs, thinking I would want to become a high school history teacher. Instead, I realized that my passion for African history demanded further exploration and I decided to apply to PhD programs in African History, ultimately landing at Boston University. For the next 8 years I trained to become a professional historian at one of the nation’s oldest African Studies Centers. After living in Brookline, South Boston, Dorchester, and Somerville (with a year and a half in Mozambique and Portugal for my doctoral research) my partner and I landed in Cambridge, MA in 2016. I completed my graduate studies in 2019, which turned out to be a great time in national and world history to complete a PhD in History! (please note the sarcasm…)

I have taught at BU, Northeastern, and most recently at Harvard where I am currently a visiting scholar in the Center for African Studies. With more than a decade of classroom teaching experience, I have come to identify as a teacher-scholar—I believe my work in the classroom is just as important as my scholarly output. I will bring this same energy to my work as a school committee member, to help build trusting, respectful, and collaborative working relationships between all stakeholders in our school district, and support our educators to be their best selves for our students and families.