I lead research and evaluation programs for national nonprofits that provide direction and evidence for advocacy and communications. I'm passionate about education equity, lgbtq+ rights, and racial justice. I enjoy the process of identifying both organizational and field needs, and from that I propose projects that advance the progress of critical movements. It’s very common for me to collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to develop shared goals and effective strategies. I've worked with pioneers in lgbtq+ education and leading civil rights experts, and been instrumental in key moments in expanding education equity and combatting attacks on social justice. I provide and interpret data to inform policy, program development, and legal strategy and support continuous organizational improvement. Here a few of the moments that remind me of how fulfilling it is to do this work:✨ I advised the U.S. Department of Education on its first-ever inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity items on data collection tools, resulting in new additions to several federal surveys. ✨I built the Youth Activism Research Collaborative, a partnership with external scholars and a Youth Advisory Board to conduct research that supports and informs both internal programming and the youth development field at large. Collaborative has resulted in peer reviewed papers and grant awards that increase organizational revenue.✨ Under my leadership of GLSEN’s flagship biennial National School Climate Survey, the sample size tripled to 23K LGBTQ+ youth, enabling deeper, intersectional analysis and stronger evidence-base for programmatic recommendations.✨I was a founding member of the Nationwide Education Equity Working Group, and continue to develop ACLU’s education justice portfolio, spearheading initiatives, including a research-to-action school policing symposium and a discriminatory school dress code project, contributing to an increase in prioritization and resourcing of education equity work across the organization. ✨I secured and developed a multi-year research-to-practice partnership on LGBTQ+-inclusive teacher education, managing relationships with leading teacher educator associations, resulting in the first national data on LGBTQ+ issues in teacher preparation.If you'd like to talk about using research for social change, reach out or send me a connection request!
Listed skills include Community Outreach, Community Development, Program Development, Statistics, and 19 others.
