“Poetry is the evidence that the heart thinks and the mind feels.”
Nayyirah Waheed
I enjoy seeing opportunities where they seemingly do not exist. I am committed to supporting new paths for communities through bottom–up approaches to policy change. With over a decade of experience in grassroots and grasstops organizing and advocacy, I know firsthand that change must be centered on the people most impacted by inequities.
I rely on abilities such as synthesizing complex information, relationship–building, finding creative solutions and seeing the big picture amidst challenging circumstances. My role as a program officer for a movement–building funder allows me to leverage these skills constantly. I often find myself immersed in learning about the creative models and collaborative strategies the community–based organizations we fund use to address issues impacting low–income families.
After undergraduate school in Portland, I returned home to Alaska and worked in policy, organizing and advocacy for nearly a decade. I ran an award-winning statewide youth civic engagement initiative and eventually headed to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. I worked for USAID as a senior policy analyst before joining the Foundation through the 2015 Momentum Fellowship cohort.