I firmly believe that all kids are our kids, and I’ve spent the last decade doing my part to reshape the systems around our kids so that they actually work the way they’re supposed to. I’ve been a facilitator, a capacity builder, a narrative-shaper, and the one helping to surface patterns that perpetuate a problematic status quo. Engaging with organizations of all types and sizes for years, I’ve learned that the internal always drives the external: you can’t deliver what you don’t have. This means I care as much about serving internal organizational systems and culture as much as I care about helping them shape the macro that is their mission. As a trained systems thinking facilitator with a background in data and policy analysis, I’m usually the person in the room asking about the story behind the numbers, facilitating understanding of the hidden dynamics quietly generating the results everyone’s frustrated by. My subject matter expertise touches early childhood education, K-12, and direct-service nonprofits working in housing and food systems – all places caught in the tension between meeting urgent needs today and reshaping the systems that keep generating that same need tomorrow. Whether it’s a resource-constrained non-profit, a school system, a food access network, or a coalition of cross-sector agencies, my sweet spot is employing qualitative systems science methodology to help groups align on the core challenges, see what’s actually driving outcomes, and walk away with solution-focused approaches they can keep using (and building on) long after I’m gone.

Training an organization, agency, or cross-sector coalition to bring participatory systems science approaches to their policymaking and processes, and staying embedded long enough that the habits outlast the people who first learned them. (Then watching them become a high-impact model that others seek to follow.)

Curious, Perceptive, Conscientious

Leading research and authoring a report to inform Michigan’s early childhood and K-12 systems alignment for stronger PK-3 transitions.