Knowing that I wanted to work with students again, but perhaps at an earlier stage of development, I established my college planning consultancy in 2020. In the practice, I serve students and families around the country with guidance on all aspects of the college planning and application process. Together, we explore college fit, support needs and affordability utilizing a curriculum and approach that supports all types of learners. I also imbue a career exploration mindset that will serve students throughout college and beyond. Key accomplishments: - All of the students I’ve worked with through the process have had multiple “good fit” schools to choose from at acceptance time - Built a practice that’s grown significantly year-over-year solely upon referrals from happy families and colleagues - Serve as an active member of my professional organization, the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA), including acting as the Vice Chair for the Learning Differences/Neurodiversity (LD/ND) Committee from 2022-23 - Maintain a robust network of fellow consultants, high school counselors, college admissions professionals, tutors and executive function coaches to ensure continuous learning and client support - Present engaging and interactive sessions on the college planning process to students and families at high schools, middle schools and tutoring centers

When I was invited by a faculty mentor to apply for a position with MIIS, I jumped at the opportunity. Great mentors again played a huge role in ensuring that I was well-prepared to provide comprehensive career advising to students.Over time, my role morphed to better meet the needs of Institute students, but my focus was always providing thorough and compassionate advising, empowering students to effectively manage their career development. Key Accomplishments: - Co-developed the Center for Advising and Career Services, a service-focused learning and teaching organization providing comprehensive guidance through the student lifecycle - Built the Institute’s fellowship, exchange and study abroad programs and fostered a culture supportive of these immersive learning opportunities amongst faculty and staff - Founded and led the first Spring Break networking trips to Washington, DC, giving students first-hand access to their primary career market well before graduation - Grew a network of relationships with a diverse range of employers who direct-hired students for internships and career positions - Supervised two graduate assistants each semester as we co-created structures for our fellowship and study abroad programs and field-specific resources for students - Having identified an opportunity to make the school’s Orientation Week more career-focused, a small team of us completely re-tooled the programming, allowing us to better support the students from their first days of graduate school - Co-presented at the Association of International Educators (NAFSA) Annual Conference and Expo, May 2014 on “Integrating Career and Academic Advising to Create Globally Competent Leaders”

Near the end of my graduate studies, I started meeting with a small group of MIIS students, alumni and a faculty member interested in convening a network of conflict resolution professionals around the world. This network became Global Majority, Inc., an organization dedicated to promoting peace and reconciliation through local and international programs. I served on the board and eventually became the first paid staff member, establishing the office, raising funds through grants and events, developing an internship program. Along with the rest of the team, I established an International Advisory Board and convened annual meetings and conferences. The organization is still active in local Monterey schools and has put on conferences and programs around the world.

During and for a time after graduate school, I worked for the Naval Postgraduate School, a Navy-run graduate school. I served as the assistant for a professor in the Graduate School of Defense Management, and later became a research assistant for professors in the Department of National Security Affairs. In this role, I had the opportunity to coordinate a number of conferences, including, “Global Determinants of Defense Reform” a conference for the Center for Civil Military Relations and “Interim Governments: Institutional Bridges to Peace and Democracy?” a conference for the Center for Stabilization and Reconstruction.

While in graduate school, I held a number of work-study funded positions. I supported my program, the Graduate School of International Policy Studies, as a Dean’s Assistant and as a Career Assistant. I also had an opportunity to serve as a Teaching Assistant for the program’s Policy Analysis class, working with some of my favorite professors and a small team of fantastic fellow TA’s. After graduating, I worked part-time as a Dean’s Assistant again to support my transition from school. I learned so much from these roles, including that I’m very comfortable and happy working in academia and that I greatly enjoy bringing out the best in students.

For this graduate-school experience, I conducted a solo field research project in post-conflict Sierra Leone focused on the transitional justice and disarmament processes taking place in that post-conflict country sponsored by the Small Arms Survey. I had the opportunity to talk with United Nations (UN) and non-governmental organization (NGO) experts throughout Freetown for my research, and joined a small UN Development Programme (UNDP) field trip upcountry to observe how their “Disarmament for Development” projects were going at various sites. This was a seminal experience for me. It taught me that field research positions in post-conflict countries would not be a good fit for me, and sent me back to the drawing board in terms of my career planning.

My work with the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue began as a summer internship between my first and second years of graduate school, and continued on as a remote consulting position the following fall. Capitalizing on my database management experience, I created a database for the organization that helped them manage distribution of their publications. From there, I was able to take on projects that were more fun for me: I co-coordinated a pilot e-training course in negotiations for humanitarian practitioners, contributed research to an organization-published document called, “Putting Guns in their Place: A Resource Pack for Two Years of Action by Humanitarian Agencies,” and co-authored a book chapter entitled, “Justice and Security Sector Governance,” in Missing Pieces: Directions for Reducing Gun Violence through the UN Process on Small Arms Control. The last project included a trip to South Africa to meet with the other contributors - a daunting but exhilarating experience!

The Deloitte Consulting firm was brought in to support the Washington, DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) in their transition to an online database management system. This project was called FACES. A college friend reached out to see if I was interested in applying to work with her on the project (of course I was!) I was hired to provide technical support to Agency staff, and I managed the database we used to track issues we were working on. Later, I was promoted to a role leading a team charged with fixing a finance-related component of the database. I learned so much from this experience, and living and working in the Washington, DC area inspired me to apply to graduate school to focus on international policy.

This position with AON, a global risk management firm, was my very first job after college. At the time, I had no idea what I really wanted to do with my life. I mean, what does one do with an undergraduate degree in sociology and anthropology? (I have many more answers for this question now!) This role gave me a chance to explore new skill sets and receive excellent mentorship. I discovered that I excelled at interpreting technical documents and developing spreadsheets and databases. I had the incredible opportunity to serve on the small team that ran the NIKE, Inc. account as well as several other prestigious brands. Seeing the need for a more sophisticated way to manage data, I worked with a technical expert and designed a database for NIKE’s risk management program that went on to become the model tool used for many other clients.