Ultimately, I care deeply about students and our democracy. I think the combination is how we will make our country a better place.Since June of 2020, I have served in a student-focused role for Campus Vote Project, with a current title of Student Engagement Director. In that role, I have transformed the fellowship to include robust civic leadership learning outcomes that are supported by data-driven and research-informed practices. As our fellowship program has grown to over 250 Fellows across nearly 15 states, I have focused on social justice approaches to ensure each student is not fed a prescriptive curriculum, but a curriculum that best supports their unique circumstances on their individual campuses in states with varying voting laws. I also spent eight years as a doctoral candidate in the University of Texas at Austin's Communication Studies Program (Political Communication). For five years, I served as a Graduate Research Associate at the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Engagement, where I researched best practices in engaging young citizens in voting and I coordinated the TX Votes nonpartisan student organization. During my time in this position, the university was recognized with the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge's "Most Improved Undergraduate Turnout" award and Campus Vote Project's "Voter Friendly Campus Designation, as well as featured in national periodicals like New York Times and Forbes.com for our voter engagement efforts. I've also worked as an editor, journalist, and K-12 educator.I have extensive experience in youth voter engagement, academic research, newspaper reporting, institutional communications, nonprofit organizations, and teaching.